Can't Stand Losing You
by slytherin-until-i-die
Summary: Draco Malfoy, the love of Hermione's life, has decided that he isn't good for her and that she can do better than him. While Hermione struggles to come to terms with losing him, Draco wonders whether or not he made the right decision. They were perfect.
1. The End

Chapter One – The End:

"Hermione, please."

As painful as it was, Hermione never once looked back at him as she strode away along the platform. Try as she might to restrain herself from crying, she could already feel the tears stinging her eyes. Her face felt hot and her clothes clung uncomfortably to her peaches-and-cream skin – frustrated, hideously so, she unbuttoned the periwinkle blue cardigan she wore, scrunched it up into the smallest ball she could manage and stuffed it inside the Hogwarts trunk she pulled along behind her. After slamming the lid back down, she began fumbling with the clasp, trying to lock the case once more, but it appeared that, in her haste to open it, she had torn half of it clean off. Huffing angrily, she pulled her wand out of the pocket of her jeans and pointed it at the case. She opened her mouth to mutter the necessary incantation but, remembering that their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had now officially ended, stopped herself – she didn't want a warning from the Ministry regarding her use of magic away from school adding to her growing list of problems. Instead, feeling extremely helpless, she sat down on top of her case, her head in her hands, and gave herself over to the storm that was raging in her eyes.

She heard footsteps rapidly approaching – she knew who it was, the only person it could be right now, without even looking up. He knelt down beside her; she turned her face away, not wanting him to see the tears flowing down her cheeks, not wanting to reveal quite how much he had hurt her.

"You know I never wanted it to happen like this," he murmured, pulling a hand through his silver-blonde hair and craning his neck in an attempt to see her face. "Hermione..." He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder.

"No," she said flatly through her tears, shrugging off his hand. 

"Please, _please _don't hate me. What I said was for the best. You know what I think. I'm..." He sucked in a sharp, shallow breath, as though he too was fighting back tears. "I'm not good for you."

Hermione wiped her eyes roughly on her sleeve and finally turned to face him.  
>"Draco Malfoy." She dragged his name out slowly, her chocolate brown eyes boring into his own stormy grey. "When I have I ever agreed with the fact that 'you're not good for me'?" She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. "When have I ever cared? At which point, during our entire year-and-a-half-long relationship did I insinuate that I didn't think you were good for me?"<p>

"You didn't need to," he retorted, looking down at the ground. "It's obvious."

A raucous giggle sounded from somewhere over Draco's head. Hermione glanced up – Pansy Parkinson, a vile Slytherin girl with a ghastly personality and a face to match, had laughed in her usual attention-seeking manner, and was now whispering to her friend Astoria Greengrass. Astoria was slight and willowy with dark brunette hair and a constant sarcastic smirk on her face. While Pansy muttered away in her friend's ear, Astoria stared pointedly at the scene going on between Draco and Hermione. Hermione's brow furrowed as she glared up at Astoria. Draco turned in her direction, presumably to see what she was looking at and, from where she was sitting, Hermione was sure she saw him gesture and shake his head cautiously at the pair. Pansy giggled again, while Astoria winked at Draco. She looked him over for a few moments, before turning back to Pansy and continuing their conversation. Hermione's eyes narrowed as she gasped in realization.

"Astoria Greengrass?" Draco flicked his head back around to face Hermione and gaped at her. "Well?" Hermione demanded. "For your sake, I hope that wasn't what it looked like."

The Slytherin girls standing nearby seemed to have noticed Hermione's outburst – all of them, excluding Pansy who smiled mockingly, were now glaring at Hermione. For an endless moment, Draco did nothing but stare at her, his expression partly embarrassed, partly excruciatingly apologetic. His pale cheeks flushed. A loud screech of metal on metal suddenly pierced the air and Draco and Hermione looked up to see the scarlet profile of the Hogwarts Express rolling to a gradual halt on the platform, ready to take the students back to London for the summer holidays. Despite the warm, sultry afternoon, the air suddenly felt cold against Hermione's skin. Her jaw clenched and she stood up.

"Well, Draco. I think you've made your point quite clear," she told him icily, reaching down to pick up her trunk. 

"Hermione, you've got to hear me out," he pleaded, walking around her, forcing her to look at him. 

"I really don't think so," she heard herself say, feeling tears welling up in her eyes once more. "I think you're right. Maybe it is time we stopped seeing other. You've obviously given up on me. I guess that's just proof that I need to give up on you."

She turned around as the sliding train doors magically all opened in perfect synchronisation. Feeling his eyes on her back, she began climbing the steps, wheeling her trunk behind her.

"Hermione, _please._" She turned. Draco was stood one step down from her, his skin brushing against hers. He stared imploringly into her eyes. "Let me sit with you, let me explain..." 

"I don't think that will be appropriate," she told him, a single tear escaping. She moved ahead down the aisle, into the first carriage she came to. "Please don't follow me," she said flatly, not even looking around at him. "You said it yourself – it's over. Goodbye, Draco."

And with that, she locked herself in a compartment, quite alone, and lay down on the bench, curling in on herself in attempt to mask the pain that felt like something had been ripped out from inside her. Her heart was breaking – the feeling was almost tangible. She groaned, tears now streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks. She didn't care anymore. She rolled off the bench onto the floor and leant against the wall of the compartment, hugging her knees. She tried to wonder where her friends Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville were, she tried to wonder how long it would be until the Hogwarts Express would be departing... but she couldn't seem to make her brain work properly. For once in her life, Hermione Granger, the cleverest witch of her age, couldn't force her mind to come up with answers. All she could think about was that her first crush, her first kiss, her first and only true love didn't want her anymore.

It was going to be a long journey, a long night and an unbearably long summer.


	2. Forgetting

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Chapter Two – Forgetting:

Hermione thought that she knew what it felt like for time to pass at a slowly. For example, in her first year at Hogwarts, she had believed that time was passing slowly when she and Ron had waited for Harry to recover from his escapades with Professor Quirrell in his bid to find the Philosopher's Stone. In her third year, she had believed that time was passing slowly when she and Harry were forced to wait for their past selves, only being watched again through the power of Hermione's Time-Turner, to emerge from the Shrieking Shack and into the clutches of Remus Lupin at his most dangerous. In her fourth year, she had believed that time was passing slowly when her best friend had been lost in the heart of a magical, terrifying maze during the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. And more recently, in her fifth year, she had believed that time was passing slowly when Bellatrix Lestrange and her fearsome Death Eaters had held her and her friends captive, their wands to their throats, while Harry had been drawn into a dark battle which would twist the very fabric of the wizarding world.

That was, until she had arrived back at her home on the outskirts of South London. After the usual greetings had been exchanged with her parents (throughout which Hermione had painted a smile on her face and attributed the mascara-tainted tear tracks on her cheeks to bittersweet farewells between her and her school friends), she had dragged her feet upstairs to her bedroom and locked the door. Her room had been full of painful reminders of Draco Malfoy – countless enchanted photographs of them together on the walls that moved animatedly, a magical cake on her shelf they had made together for Hermione's fifteenth birthday that replenished itself whenever a slice was eaten, a single feather from the plumage of Draco's pet eagle owl, Artemis, that had fallen onto her window ledge last summer when they had exchanged letters. She had glanced at her digital clock; the glowing red numbers told her it was three minutes to midnight. After kicking off her shoes and throwing her trunk down onto the floor, without bothering to change her clothes, she had turned off all the lights and cried, cried until she could see the sun rising again through the window, cried until she felt as though there were no more tears left in her body to possibly shed. Quivering, nauseous and exhausted, she had drifted off into an uneasy but mercifully dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Hermione's mother had entered her bedroom to find her slumped against the wall beside her desk, tears streaming down her face, her hair tousled and matted, clutching a greyscale photograph of her daughter and a silver-blonde-haired boy to her heart. Sarah Granger had grown used to seeing the subjects of the photographs Hermione brought home moving, as if by a trick of the light. Her daughter had explained that it was by _magic _– the reason her only daughter was educated far away from home, the skill that caused her so much frustration because she was not allowed to practice it during the holidays, the word that always made Hermione's eyes light up when it was mentioned. In the particular photograph Hermione currently held, both her daughter and the boy were wrapped up in winter coats, hats and scarves. They stood near what appeared to be the edge of an enormous frozen lake, the magnificent castle known as Hogwarts, Hermione's school, standing in the distance. The boy's arm was draped tenderly around her shoulders, and her hand was visible peeping around his waist. Her chocolate brown eyes were on him, but his, unchanged by the colour scheme of the photograph, stared straight into the camera, full of laughter and happiness. Sarah had sat down beside her daughter and asked who the boy was, and Hermione had told her.

She had told a wonderful tale of a boy named Draco Malfoy, a boy with haunted grey eyes, an athletic build and hair of silver-blonde. After fate had drawn them together halfway through their fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – something to do with jealousy, regrets and a ball to celebrate an ancient magical tournament as well as the arrival of Christmas – the odds had been set against them. But despite what everybody had said, their relationship had remained strong, they had stayed true to one another and the pair had been nearly inseparable for eighteen months. Sarah had rolled her eyes as she listened. During the summer holidays last year when Hermione had returned home, she had noticed a change in her daughter. She had waved off the glassy-eyed daydreams, the love heart doodles and scrawled initials in her notebook and Hermione's sudden desire to wear make-up as a side-effect of her raging hormones. Now, in hindsight, it seemed very obvious. She should have known there had been a boy involved.

The end of Hermione's story, however, was not quite so wonderful. Draco Malfoy had ended their relationship the previous afternoon because, Hermione seemed to believe, he had set his sights on another girl. Sarah had hugged her daughter at this point, due to the fact that the tears had begun to fall again. After sending her downstairs to get some food into her system and lose herself in one of her beloved books, she began to take down the photographs of Hermione and Draco from the walls and packed them away into boxes, alongside birthday and Christmas cards, a strange golden-brown feather and a silver heart-shaped locket containing a single moving image of the pair dancing together on what looked like a crowded dance floor. She had locked the everlasting cake away at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen indefinitely until she figured out how to get rid of it – every time she went to throw it away, she found herself confused as to why she was holding the cake and opening up the waste bin. When Sarah had finished tidying, she had joined her daughter and husband in the sitting room.

"It'll be okay, angel," she had told Hermione soothingly, rubbing circles into the back of the slightly-shaking hand she held with her thumb. "It'll all be okay. You'll get better, you'll move on, because that's just who you are. You're my Hermione. I know you can survive anything. You'll forget all about him."

That had happened six weeks ago. Now, as September drew nearer and Sarah closed Hermione's bedroom door for the night, she realised how very wrong she had been.


	3. Decisions

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Chapter Three – Decisions:

Draco Malfoy lay on his vast walnut four-poster bed, absently massaging the constant stabbing pain in his temple with his index finger, his silver-blonde hair flopping lazily down over one eye. The feeling instantly grating on his nerves, he pushed it back, holding it there with one hand. Everything had seemed to bother him recently, ranging from the tiny, inane things – the fact that his silvery locks refused to stay in place, for example – to the drastically important, fundamental issues that he had neither the means nor the motivation to attempt to change – the highly-coloured nightmares his troubled mind subjected him to every night, the manner in which the bitingly sarcastic comments that often reduced his own mother to tears rolled off his tongue without a second thought, his lack of desire to do anything with his summer holidays than skulk aimlessly around the Wiltshire manor house he shared with his family and hold up the front that he painted on every morning, the front that led the world to believe that he was unfazed and unruffled by the events that had occurred on the last day of term. Everybody thought that he was absolutely, one-hundred-percent okay, and he hoped to keep them thinking that for as long as possible.

The hideous, inconceivable truth, however, was that Draco Malfoy could not remember a time in his life, a time in his short fifteen-and-a-half years as a part of the wizarding world, when he had ever felt less okay. He felt irritable, isolated and pent-up, constrained within the dark brick walls of Malfoy Manor. He was aware that these feelings were all products of his own stubbornness; he had plenty of friends that he could summon up to hang out with if he really wanted to, but the truth was, he didn't know what to tell them. He hadn't accomplished anything mildly exciting or extraordinary since he had seen them last, and he highly doubted that anything they could possibly have to tell him about would be able to provide his mind with the distraction it so desperately craved. Sitting up and gazing around his bedroom, he idly wondered what the weather was like at present. The days, the weeks and the months faded imperceptibly into each other when one refused to open one's bedroom curtains, let alone set foot outside.

He heaved back the heavy, dark chartreuse drapes, hardly surprised that the sun instantly blinded him through the glass – it was mid-August, the very peak of British summertime. With two weeks of the summer holidays remaining, if he had cared to admit it, Draco would almost have been ashamed of the fact that the last time he had ventured into the outside world was the day he had left Hogwarts to return to London.

"What's so wrong with staying inside?" he speculated bitterly out loud, pushing the window open, allowing the warm, fresh, country air passage into the room. The words sounded familiar as he spoke them – his pale eyebrows knitted together as he tried to remember the context in which he had last heard them used. His heart wrenched as the memory came flooding back.

"_Come on, Draco, it's a beautiful day!" Hermione grabbed his hand playfully and turned, trying to pull him back through the gap in the wall that led to the Slytherin common room and residential dormitories. Although it was highly irregular for a student to be seen in the living quarters of a house that was not their own, the Slytherins, particularly Draco's inner circle, were becoming accustomed to the sight of the Gryffindor bookworm Hermione Granger in their midst. It could even have been said that Draco's closest friends, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, were becoming rather fond of her presence. She was sweet and intelligent with a wicked sense of shake humour._

_Draco groaned. "Hermione..." he drawled, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth. "What's so wrong with staying inside?" He tried to keep his tone serious but, when Hermione began pleading sarcastically in a singsong voice and batting her eyelashes, he realized that he simply could not deny her anything in the world. _

His eyes snapped open and he ruffled his hair with his hands, trying to shake off the memory. Since the last time he'd seen her, Draco had tried with all of his might to think of Hermione Granger as little as was physically possible, and had done so quite successfully for a while but, lately, the memories and bittersweet flashbacks had been coming thick and fast. She was the subject of his vivid dreams, the living proof of how much a person's heart and soul could change in eighteen months and the angelic, inescapable ghost that kept coming back to haunt him. He decided to attribute the recent shift in his emotional stability to the grim, unchanging scenery of Malfoy Manor that surrounded him. The shadowy corners, the gloomy hues and the gaping hallways of the house made him feel empty and somewhat jaded – with nothing to focus upon but vast spaces and darkness, a large portion of his mind was frequently left to wander, exploring the void and regurgitating memories far more often than Draco would have liked. He decided that altering his surroundings would probably be beneficial to him and, with that, he pulled on his shoes and shut his bedroom door behind him.

Without encountering either of his parents on the way to the front door, he set off on foot toward the nearby Muggle town of Westbury. He had never visited the town at his leisure – the only times he ever went there were when he and his family Apparated to and from King's Cross Station at the start and end of Draco's terms at Hogwarts. The grounds of Malfoy Manor were under the protection of every Muggle repelling spell and enchantment imaginable, some of which had power over wizards too. Because of this, Apparition was impossible within a large radius of the house, resulting in the need for one to travel further afield to achieve it. What with his father's powerful and demanding position at the Ministry of Magic, the Malfoys used the charms as a method of stopping witches and wizards appearing and disappearing constantly, regardless of the family's own wishes and privacy.

After a brief yet peaceful walk along a humble dirt track and having crossed two battered, moss-covered stiles, Draco arrived in the rural settlement of Westbury, an idyllic little tourist-trap full of picturesque country houses and classic, old-world shops. It was a Saturday so, naturally, the town was teeming with people. He strolled down the high street, meandering through the crowd, not really paying much attention to anything but the bright sunshine and how glorious its rays felt against his skin after six weeks of basically hibernating. The heat was sweltering – he had already removed his black cloak and folded it over his arm. With no Muggle money or plans for the immediate future to speak of, he sat down on a wooden bench outside a shop called the 'newsagents' and began to mentally address his situation.

Why did his thoughts keep wandering back to Hermione? He had broken off the relationship with her, not the other way around, completely for her own good. That day on the platform, he had told her, begged her to agree that he was a bad influence on her, that he was all that was wrong in her life, that she could easily find somebody better than him who would snap her up as soon as they returned to school in September. Absently, he pulled up the sleeve of his white dress shirt, revealing the unpleasant, green-and-black image of a snake protruding from the mouth of a skull, the image that grew darker and burnt his flesh more strongly each and every day. He had only been thinking of her when he had ended their eighteen-month relationship that day six weeks ago. It had been the mature, responsible decision, the one which would make her the happiest and keep her the safest in the long run.

Draco sighed. _I shouldn't be feeling like this,_ he chastised himself. _All that matters is that she's safe. _He knew that she would move on, and he imagined that he would too. Immediately he began staring into the faces of every girl that passed him in the tranquil Muggle street, picking out details of their faces that caught his attention. One girl's hair was so glossy and golden that it could have been fashioned by goblins, creatures so adept at their craft that a single piece of their treasure could be worth upward of a thousand galleons. Another had eyes of harlequin green that gleamed animatedly, like those of the merpeople he had seen in his fourth year at school. His eyes widened, watching her for a moment as she went about her business.

Then, he started to notice all of the wrong things. Overly-familiar things. Things that reminded him of Hermione. A girl that walked past chattering into her mobile phone had her fingernails painted the exact same shade of cerise that Hermione favoured. Another's hair fell in the same unruly ringlets that Hermione had and hated so much.

"_They're disgusting," Hermione groaned, shaking her hair out and pulling it all over to one side of her heart-shaped face.  
><em>

"_Shh, no they're not," Draco told her, twisting one around his index finger. "I think they're gorgeous," he assured her, touching the tip of her nose with the curl he held in his hand. "Just like you."_

Having decided that the exercise was no longer working, Draco threw his cloak back over his shoulders and began to head back along the dirt track toward the ominous figure in the distance that was Malfoy Manor. A change of scenery had evidently not been a suitable distraction – he needed to find an alternative, and he needed to find one fast. If he didn't, he wasn't sure how much longer he would last.


	4. An Occasion

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Chapter Four – An Occasion:

_Hermione gazed into the mirror at her reflection and heaved a sigh of relief. She had spent the last two hours ferociously working liberal amounts of Sleekeasy's Hair Potion into what were once her tousled, unruly tresses – when the potion had, as its container had predicted, 'worked its magic', she had bundled her now poker-straight hair into a carefully casual bun on top of her head, leaving several neat ringlets hanging down to elegantly frame her heart-shaped face. After adding a touch of light make-up, she had stepped into the stunning periwinkle-blue dress that had stolen her breath away when she first spotted it on a bewitched mannequin at the back of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions on her last visit to Diagon Alley. Mr Weasley had informed them all that, for a reason he was not allowed to divulge, they would each require dress robes or similar clothing suitable for a formal occasion at some point this year, and Hermione knew instantly that she had found exactly what she wanted. The bespoke gown, Madam Malkin had explained, would cost a large portion of Hermione's savings and would require a fitting. She had taken almost an hour to deliberate, running her fingers over the material that floated over the mannequin's body like liquid, mentally comparing it to garments she had seen in _Witch Weekly_. After a quick visit to Gringotts, she had handed over the necessary amount of galleons and was fitted for the dress. Madam Malkin, a stout witch with a hard face but a friendly and almost motherly demeanour, had made the required adjustments. "You're going to knock them all dead, dear," she had told her, touching her shoulder._

_Glancing up at the clock, Hermione immediately realized that the Yule Ball was due to start in eight minutes. After taking one final look in the mirror and internally wishing herself good luck, she turned and left her dormitory. As she passed silently through the common room and through the portrait hole, a part of her was nervous and another part was glad that Gryffindor Tower was totally deserted. Everyone in the fourth year and above seemed to be attending the Ball, while all of the younger students had evidently opted to go home for the Christmas holidays. Having clearly kept better track of time than her, she thought, they must all have been downstairs already. Although the corridors were as empty as Gryffindor Tower had been, the steady buzz of conversation grew louder and louder as Hermione approached the Entrance Hall. She blinked once, sucked in a sharp breath and stepped forward toward the top of the Grand Staircase._

_Hermione descended the staircase slowly, fearing the worst if she tried to do otherwise – snapping a heel or tearing a hole in her dress seemed like a poor omen for the night ahead. She stopped focusing on her feet and, instead, decided to look up and push her shoulders back, an old tip her mother had given her to help one feel more confident or, at least, make one _appear _to be more confident. As she walked, she spotted Viktor Krum – seeker for the Bulgarian national Quidditch team and her dance partner for the evening – moving through the throng of students to the foot of the stairs to greet her, his eyes gleaming, a grin spreading across his handsome face. Despite the fact that she could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on her, she couldn't help but smiling back at him._

_Suddenly, a high-pitched noise of either surprise or horror caught her attention. She glanced at the crowd to see Pansy Parkinson, wearing a frilly, tiered gown of pale pink, shaking the arm of Draco Malfoy who, Hermione assumed, was to be her dance partner. Draco's eyes, to Hermione's shock, were fixed on her. He ignored Pansy and, despite the distance between them, Hermione saw him visibly swallow hard. Her eyes caught his as he stared at her and, if Hermione hadn't known him any better, she would have sworn that she'd seen a hint of a smile._

Hermione opened her eyes, not wanting to relive the memory any further than she had already allowed herself to. The sun was now streaming fiercely through the gap in her curtains – golden shapes danced on the floor like living creatures hiding from the ever-present shadows that covered Hermione's bedroom floor. The curtains hadn't been opened properly for weeks. It may have been months, or even years. She didn't know. She didn't care, not now, not anymore. She heard the creak of a door, the brushing sound of wood passing too closely over carpet, and then her mother was by her side, sitting on the chair beside her bed and pushing her tangled locks back out of her face.

"Hello, love," her mother said, her voice that feigned happiness suddenly laced with concern. 

"Hey, Mum," Hermione forced out on her second attempt, the first having only been a hollow whisper, a half-formed sound that had stuck in the back of her throat. 

"Hermione, love, do you know what date it is?" she asked her, resting a hand on Hermione's forehead as though gauging her temperature. Closing her eyes once more, Hermione shook her head. This summer – if it could really have been called a summer – had been the longest of her life. Hours had blurred into days, days had blurred into weeks. Time had passed in strangely distorted bursts and she constantly felt drained, as though she was recovering from a lengthy bout of flu. Having realized she was not going to get a vocal response, she went on.  
>"Tomorrow is the first of September."<p>

Hermione gasped, sitting bolt upright. She blinked sleep from her eyes and, suddenly, her vision became clearer than it had been in weeks.

"That can't be right," she argued, her voice stronger now. She massaged her temple with her fingertips, feeling her hand shake as it touched her face. 

"I can assure you, Hermione, it is," her mother told her, her eyes never leaving Hermione's now panic-stricken face. "It's the last day of the holidays and, tomorrow, your dad and I are taking you to King's Cross Station to catch the train to school." Hermione didn't answer – instead, she just continued to stare blankly at the opposite wall. "I know how upset you are about what happened, sweetheart," she told her, stroking her back lightly. "But, it's just... oh, Hermione, you've been like a ghost of yourself all summer."

Hermione's lip trembled. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice feeble once more. 

"I think you know exactly what I mean, honey. You spend all of your time locked up here by yourself, you only speak when you're spoken to, you constantly look as though you're about to burst into tears... I just don't know what to do anymore. I thought..." She swallowed. "I thought you'd get better. I thought you'd move on."

But Hermione had already begun to filter out her mother's voice. She lay back down on her bed and closed her eyes, pulling the duvet over herself – she suddenly felt very cold, like an icy wind was blowing against her skin. A few minutes later, she heard her mother stand up and head toward the door.

"I'll be back to help you pack your things in a little while, love," she said, before shutting the door behind her.

Lying very still, she wondered how she, Hermione Granger, unruffled, ever-organised Hermione Granger, had allowed time to creep up on her so stealthily. She even had a monthly calendar on the wall – having barely left her bedroom since the start of the holidays, how had she not noticed, analysed and catalogued every single detail, every single piece of furniture and stored the information in her mind? How had she not realized how fast time had actually been moving? She hadn't even completed any of the homework the Gryffindors had been set for the holidays!

_Gryffindor. _The word triggered something in Hermione's analytical brain. _Hogwarts. The four Hogwarts houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. _Despite the pang recalling the name of this last house cost her, remembering these details soothed her with their familiarity. She began listing her school subjects, first mentally, then out loud, alongside the professors that taught them, whereabouts in the castle she practiced them, what each lesson involved. Her mind wandered the grounds, travelled down to Hagrid's hut, skirted the edge of the Black Lake, strolled up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, the particular area of the school that she and her best friends called home. She almost felt herself smiling as she thought of faces and matched names to them. Her fellow Gryffindors – Harry and Ron, of course, but also Ginny, Fred, George, Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas, Parvati Patil, alongside members of other houses she had come to know over the years – Padma Patil and Cho Chang from Ravenclaw, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini from Slytherin. She sighed as she pictured Theodore and Blaise, sharing a joke with her in front of the fire in the Slytherin common room, laughing with her, _accepting her, _something which she had previously never thought possible.

And that's when it really began to hit her. Tomorrow wouldn't just be the day that Hermione returned to Hogwarts. It wouldn't just be the day that she was reunited with her best friends after what felt like an eternity. It wouldn't just be the day that she resumed her lessons and continued studying in the hopes of achieving the best grades she could. Tomorrow would mean a whole lot more than that.

Tomorrow, she realized, would be the first time she had seen Draco Malfoy since their break-up on the platform seven weeks earlier.


	5. Confusion

Chapter Five – Confusion:

The night before Draco was due to return to Hogwarts was one of the strangest of his life. After his mother had forcefully recommended that he got a decent night's sleep before heading back to school, he had laid in bed tossing and turning from the early evening onwards. His eyelids had first begun to droop just as the horizon swallowed up the sun, and he had slipped into an uneasy sleep – several minutes later he was wide awake once more, despite feeling as though he had been unconscious for hours. This went on for a while, all of his troubled dozes quickly being disturbed by creaks and unexplainable noises from elsewhere in the ancient manor house, sudden onsets of stifling humidity and biting cold – he found himself constantly getting up to open and close the window as the temperature fluctuated erratically. His body ached with fatigue and his emotions were drained, but still his mind refused to allow him respite. As the old bone china clock on the mantelpiece had proceeded to tick on past midnight and into the small hours of the morning, he had become even more restless and eventually gave up the fruitless attempts at sleep. He left his bedroom and crept along to the black-tiled bathroom and the end of the corridor.

This room had always been too large and draughty for Draco's tastes, much like the majority of the house; everything was oversized and exaggerated to give added sense of drama and grandeur his parents, particularly his father, were partial to when it came to interior decoration. The dark tiles glinted eerily as the lamps magically began to glow in Draco's wake – he stared into the antique ivory-gilded mirror and gasped as he took in his reflection. Sunken dark circles, the products of many sleepless nights, framed his cold grey eyes, and his pale cheeks were blanched with patches of dark pink from the intolerable heat in his bedroom. His white-blonde hair stuck up in every direction, and a thin sheen of sweat made his skin glow under the harsh lighting. The tiled floor felt blissfully cool beneath his feet and, without thinking, he sank to the ground, pressing the bare skin of his back down against the cold surface. He sighed and, despite the uncomfortable position he now lay in, wished he didn't have to move from the floor, wished he could just stay here, locked away from the world, locked away where he wouldn't have to face Hogwarts, his friends, his classmates and, most of all, _her. _

Somehow, his thoughts always managed to wander back to her. Everything he saw suddenly seemed to remind him of Hermione – for example, until recently, he had never noticed that the wood the Malfoys' ornate dining table was carved from was the exact same chocolate brown hue as her eyes. The manner in which their head housekeeper, a stony-faced witch named Elvira, folded her hands together and cocked her head as she looked at him was similar to when Hermione used to do it and, every time the plump ginger cat which was owned by a pair of rich Muggles who lived nearby passed through the gardens, he couldn't help but think of Hermione's treasured pet Crookshanks and the way he would slink across the lawn outside the castle toward them they sat down together to enjoy their leisure time. Not too long ago, as Draco had joined his family for dinner outside in the court yard on a particularly balmy day, he had noticed that his mother wore a white-gold pin in the distinctive curved-yet-straight shape of a phoenix feather in her inky black hair that was identical to the ornament that Hermione had worn to hold up her ash-brown tresses at the Yule Ball. It seemed forever ago now.

"_Draco, are you even listening to me?" Pansy demanded, snapping her fingers impatiently in front of his face. "I sincerely hope, for your own sake, that you're not staring at that Mudblood Granger."_

_Her voice became even shriller than usual as she said this last word. Draco glanced at her momentarily before returning his eyes to the person they had just flitted away from, taking in every inch of her appearance as she descended the Grand Staircase. He suddenly felt very strange – his limbs ached as though recovering from a lengthy period of paralysis and, as the world and everything in it seemed to fall silent and freeze around him, he heard his heart rate quicken. He blinked and shook his head, the world started moving again and he his skin prickled as colour rose in his cheeks. He felt foolish and slightly embarrassed at how he had just reacted. What made it worse was that he couldn't put his finger on the root of his feelings._

_He tried to erase them from his mind, pass his moment of confusion off as a result of his displeasure of having Pansy Parkinson as his dance partner – he had heard his fellow Slytherins discussing her in the past, in awe of her quick wit and unwavering ambition, jealous that she had asked him to dance with her at the Yule Ball but, if he was being honest with himself, he saw her as little more than an immature bimbo who was by no means bright and, in all other areas, extraordinarily average. He had only accepted her offer because he had left it too late to find a girl who actually interested him and, as any of his friends would agree, he was far too proud to turn up alone._

_He tried to enjoy himself as much as possible throughout the evening, throwing himself into both the frivolities and the conversations he was a part of with much more enthusiasm than he would normally – even dancing with Pansy had proven to be a pleasant experience when the slow, romantic songs had come to an end. He refused to take the Yule Ball seriously; he had tried to laugh and treat his affairs with Pansy as a light-hearted joke but, all the while, he feared that the reason he was doing so was that he was still looking for a distraction. He berated himself inwardly for letting Hermione Granger wind him up so – he was nothing to her, just like she was nothing to him. _**She detests me**, _he thought, shaking his head as he gazed over in the direction of her and Viktor Krum. They were ordering drinks from the bar. Krum's right arm – muscular from playing Quidditch at an international level – was looped around her waist, and Hermione's hand rested daintily on his shoulder. He groaned at the sight of them, wondering what aspect of Hermione's persona had inspired Krum to ask her to the ball. As he watched, Krum leaned forward and murmured something into her ear. Hermione laughed loudly, the sound audible from across the Great Hall, like a peal of chiming bells. She pushed her shoulders back and her chin up, obviously having gained confidence from her new sleek hair, straight teeth and generally polished appearance._

**Well, Granger, I never had you down as someone that likes to be noticed**, _he thought to himself, pushing a hand through his hair. He watched as she laughed again, her smile never leaving her face as Krum carried on talking. To his surprise, Draco found himself smiling too. __**But you've certainly caught my attention tonight.**_

He sat up, knowing that the memories would only become more and more vivid if he didn't get himself to sleep. Searching through the wooden cupboard on the wall, he found__a tiny glass jar of sleeping tablets from the Apothecary on Diagon Alley his father had bought – 'for when trouble at the Ministry keeps me up all night, as it so often does,' he had said – and removed the cork. He swallowed the little white pills down with ease, grateful that he would finally be able to sleep. When he returned to his bedroom, his head swam and he instantly felt drowsy. He lay back and, thinking again of the memory he had just recalled, pictured Hermione's face in his mind's eye. With that image in his head, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next morning came too soon. After what felt like mere minutes of peaceful sleep, his mother was nudging him awake again, encouraging him to get up, get dressed and prepare for his departure. His body felt anaesthetised, his head numb from his heavy, drug-induced slumber, but he wasn't particularly bothered – it was the first time he had slept properly for weeks and would only have been complaining had he just risen from yet another restless night. Deciding it was for the best, he pocketed the jar of sleeping tablets before they left the house. _Something tells me I'm going to need them, _he thought idly, as the Malfoy family headed toward the town of Westbury to Apparate into King's Cross Station.

The Hogwarts Express arrived at Platform 9¾ at 11 o'clock, precisely two minutes after the Malfoys – Draco had insisted on Apparating from the Muggle town at the last minute possible. He didn't want to risk running into Hermione as she said goodbye to her parents who, he was sure, had been briefed all about what had happened between them on the last day of term. After receiving a warm embrace from his mother and a promise of "You'll hear from us soon," from his father, he boarded the train and headed down the corridor, through the throng of students, toward the Slytherin carriage. When he got there, he found Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini saving him a seat next to the window. He took it and smiled, not wanting them to let on how much he had been suffering lately, and listened rather than joined in with their relaxed conversation about the summer holidays and what they were expecting from school this year.

Theodore Nott sat beside Draco – Nott was tall and lithe, with a dry, sarcastic sense of humour and a personality that could charm anybody, particularly the Slytherin girls. Zabini, though not as tall as Nott, was lanky and dark-skinned, and he sat opposite them. In the seats across the aisle sat Pansy Parkinson, whose previously sandy brown hair was now a deep blue-black, and Astoria Greengrass, a pixie-like girl with a melodic, almost hypnotic voice and piercing pale green eyes. The four of them chatted across the aisle to each other while, as the train shuddered to life, Draco remained quiet and stared out of the window instead. After several minutes, Nott turned to Draco.

"Are you alright, mate?" he asked, eyeing Blaise, Pansy and Astoria to assure that they were still talking. "You're silent as the grave," he chuckled.

Draco shrugged. "I suppose," he told him. Nott raised his eyebrows and folded his arms, obviously having been expecting a slightly more lengthy response. "I broke up with Hermione before the holidays."

Nott's eyes widened. "You what? Why?"

"It was for her own good," said Draco, playing with the cuff of his robes to subtly reveal the edge of his Dark Mark. "Know what I mean?"

Nott rolled his eyes and raised a hand to push back his inky black hair – at the same time, he pushed down Draco's sleeve once more, covering the dark green lines.

"I know what you mean."

He bit his lip and gazed out of the window for a moment. "That's too bad, " he went on. "She was growing on me, your Hermione."

The rest of the journey was relatively quiet for Draco. Nott turned to him several times on the journey, opened his mouth to say something then obviously thought better of it, a faraway expression on his face. Pansy tried to draw him into the conversation, asking questions about what he had been up to during holidays and trying to make him admit how much he had missed her, but he did a decent job of avoiding getting too involved in the conversation, much to Pansy's obvious disappointment. He opened the window above his seat, but the carriage was stuffy, packed with the bodies of students moving around in the confined space – he needed air, he needed release, but he had no idea how to get it. Without even giving his friends an excuse, he stood up and pulled open the carriage door. He felt a rush, a cool breeze as he walked past a line of open windows – heading out into the corridor, he turned to shut the door before wheeling round again, straight into somebody carrying a mug of liquid, obviously some sort of drink. They gasped and the liquid went everywhere, all over the floor and on both of their clothes.

"Watch where you're going," he told the person icily as they bent down to mop up the spillage.

As he stared down at them, their head, their too-familiar, tousled, brunette head snapped up to face him. Chocolate brown eyes stared coldly into his.

"Hermione..."He doubled over to help her as much as he could but she had already stood up. She brushed herself off with her hand and gave him one more stony glare before turning on her heel and walking away from him as fast as she could.


	6. Anger

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Chapter Six – Anger:

Hermione stared absently out of the window of the Hogwarts Express, not taking in any part of the scenery they were passing through, as flurries of rain lashed against the glass. Beside her sat her best friends, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, who appeared to be having an in-depth discussion of the proposed line-up for the Gryffindor Quidditch team during the forthcoming year. Opposite her sat Ron's sister Ginny who, out of the corner of her eye, seemed to be alternating between nibbling at the liquorice wand she held between her fingers, adding the occasional comment to the boys' debate and glancing up at Hermione, her warm brown eyes full of concern. Hermione felt isolated, hideously so. She believed that, in the short-term, this was partly down to her friends' chosen conversation topic – although she would never admit it, the subject of Quidditch was one that she wished Harry, Ron and Ginny talked about a little less. Hermione's intellectual mind was always willing to get stuck into a good discussion but, when they talked about Quidditch, she always felt very out of the loop, a feeling which she truly hated. She found the internationally-played wizarding sport interesting to watch – the World Cup in their fourth year had been one of the best experiences of her young life – but, in terms of Quidditch at school, it was very much Ron, Harry and Ginny's 'thing'; while they attended Quidditch practice sessions, Hermione went to the library, it was as simple as that. If Hermione tried to get involved with the conversation, she feared revealing how little knowledge of the sport she actually had and making herself appear foolish so, instead, went the topic arose, she would always sit quietly and wait for the subject to shift to something else, something Hermione could relate to, something that would allow her to draw together information she'd extracted from books and lay it out before her friends' eyes in sweet, super-intelligent sentences - as much as she hated to admit it, Hermione was terribly afraid of feeling inferior, particularly in conversation. She was the clever one, the one that was always top of the class, the one who could impress anybody she pleased with her quick wit and intellect. When it came to the subject of Quidditch, nothing she had stored away in her brain could help her.

In the long term, however, she knew exactly why she felt so isolated. _She was incomplete. Broken. Imperfect. _Something had been taken from deep inside her, something essential. Hermione and Draco had been two halves of a whole, a whole which would never be complete again. This incompleteness left her heart feeling ever-cold and empty like an endless abyss, a dark void, a void she knew would never be filled. They were opposites, parallels, two very different lines running side by side – yin and yang, major and minor, black and white. Everybody knows that, when major and minor notes are separated, the symphony will never be perfect. Everybody knows that, when black and white are pulled apart, they can no longer make grey – that perfect harmony, that perfect balance, that perfect control when walking the tightrope, the fine line between the two, simply cannot be achieved anymore.

Hermione hadn't noticed that she was drifting into a doze - she jumped and opened her eyes when she had unconsciously leaned so far forward that her forehead hit the window. She gasped audibly and sat up, suddenly very aware of the three pairs of eyes that were now all on her face.

"Drifted off," she explained in a clipped tone.

At first nobody said anything – they merely glanced at one another – then Ginny leant forward surreptitiously and asked, "Are you sure you're okay, Hermione?" Her brow furrowed.

Hermione nodded tiredly, not wanting to answer Ginny's question directly.

"Because it's okay if you're not," Ron told her, struggling to remove the lid from his box of Chocolate Frogs. He finally managed to do it as Hermione watched. "The slick git bloody well dumped you. You're allowed to be a bit upset," he went on, biting into one. "

"Thanks for your _permission, _Ronald," she said, her voice bitingly sarcastic. There was a long awkward pause, during which Ginny finished her liquorice wand and Hermione went back to staring out of the window.

"Would you like a liquorice wand?" asked Ginny timidly, offering her the box. Hermione shook her head against the wall of the compartment on which she was now leaning once more.

"Hermione," Harry piped up. "You should know, if you want us to talk to Malfoy or something..."

She had heard quite enough. Huffing angrily, she removed her feet from the edge of Ginny's seat, planted them firmly back on the floor of the compartment and rotated her torso so she was sitting very upright and facing them.

"For God's sake, would you lot please stop going on at me?" she snarled uncharacteristically. "I'm totally fine, thank you very much. I don't give a Fizzing Whizbee about Draco Malfoy; I am as over him as over can be." She pressed her lips together and nodded tightly. "And even if I wasn't, Harry, I certainly wouldn't need you and Ronald acting the heroes and fighting my battles for me. I'm a big girl now," she said, laughing once without humour and standing up.

"Where are you going?" asked Ginny, her expression flabbergasted at Hermione's outburst.

"To get some air," said Hermione flatly, and with that, she stepped over her friends' legs and left the compartment, ignoring their protests and slamming the door.

With no idea where she was headed, Hermione stumbled along the wide aisle, lined either side by compartments similar to the one she had just left, all filled with her fellow Hogwarts students. Although the train was officially split into sections for the four individual houses, this system was never particularly successful on the first day of term – all of the new students had yet to be sorted, and many older pupils had developed friendships with members of houses that were not their own. She briefly wondered where she would be sitting, what she would be doing, who she would be talking to had Draco not ended their relationship that day on the very platform they were now heading for. She sighed. An old witch pushing a rickety, confectionary-laden trolley made her way past Hermione, tapping her on the shoulder and asking, "Anything from the trolley, dear?"

Suddenly remembering the purse full of wizarding money she had taken from her vault at Gringotts in the pocket of her jeans (she, Ron, Harry and Ginny still hadn't got round to changing into their Hogwarts robes, despite the fact that they must nearly have been at school), she paid for a steaming mug of warm pumpkin juice, a drink she had grown fond of at Hogwarts and had missed over the summer holidays, and carried it between her palms, allowing it to warm her hands, as she continued along the aisle of the Hogwarts Express. She stopped briefly to talk to Cho Chang, a pretty, dark-haired Ravenclaw girl and Harry's ex-girlfriend, who was entering a compartment with her friend Marietta Edgecombe who Hermione recognised from their DA meetings last year. After a short but suitably uncomfortable conversation, during which they had discussed their exploits over the holidays, the majority of which Hermione plucked from her imagination, and the Ravenclaw girls had offered their condolences over her and Draco's evidently well-publicised break-up, Hermione ducked her head and continued along the aisle, taking a sip of her pumpkin juice.

After a while, she found herself nearing the section of the train which was reserved for the students from Slytherin house. As much as she wanted to turn back, her feet wouldn't stop and, before she knew it, she was stood outside the largest of the Slytherin carriages and could just about see through the window into the compartment. From where she was, she could see an over-exaggerated giggle leave Pansy Parkinson's wide mouth and a smirk curl the lips of Astoria Greengrass – she knew she would have to step further into the aisle, possibly revealing herself, if she were to see who else was in there. Crouching slightly, she moved to the centre of the aisle. From this position, she could still see the girls, plus the hulking figure of Blaise Zabini and the laughing face and spiky hair of Theodore Nott, then, to the right of Nott, sat the one person Hermione had tortured herself with the thought of all summer, the one person she hated so much right now that it made her head hurt, the one person who she still somehow wanted to comfort her, to hold her, to tell her that everything was going to be alright.

As her eyes scanned his white-blonde hair, his stormy grey eyes, his pale face, Draco rose from his seat and glanced at the door. He began to move toward it from the opposite end of the carriage. Having not prepared to get her first glimpse of him like this and having _definitely _not prepared to speak to him, Hermione turned as quickly as she could and tried to move away but, to her horror, while she had watched Draco, somebody had slammed a compartment door shut with the edge of her pastel pink sweater caught in the mechanism. If she pulled away, she would rip a hole straight through it, but if she didn't –

It was too late. Draco's carriage door opened and he stepped over the threshold, turning his back on her once more to shut it. His hands ran over the dark wood. He was inches away from her, she wanted she could reach out to him – she could already feel the warmth radiating from his body, smell his spearmint-and-cigarettes scent in the air...

She gasped as he turned around and they collided head-on – having completely forgotten about the pumpkin juice in her hand, she relaxed her hands in surprise and dropped the mug straight onto the floor, half soaking her, the other half splashing onto Draco's green-lined Slytherin robes.

"Watch where you're going," he snapped, his voice dripping with sarcasm. She felt her cheeks burning and, to her irritation, tears stung her eyes. She glared up at him, her lower lip quivering. _I will not cry_, she told herself sternly. _Not in front of him. _His tone when he had spoken to her... it was like how he used to address her before they had begun to understand one another. _Filthy Mudblood, _he used to call her. It was like listening to third-year Draco Malfoy all over again.

His facial expression softened instantly as he bent down to her level. "Hermione," he began as he crouched down beside her. She felt herself shaking her head in disbelief. It felt strange being in such close proximity with him again – the skin of his arm brushed against hers as he tried to help her. Before he had the opportunity to, however, she brought herself back up to her full height which she knew, in comparison to his, wasn't really anything to be intimidated by. She gave him the coldest glare she could manage before violently but successfully pulling herself free of the compartment door and stalking away in the opposite direction, feeling his eyes on her back the whole time.

When she reached Harry, Ron and Ginny's compartment, they didn't speak as she resumed her seat. She leant forward, raking her hands through her tousled brown hair and feeling the damp patch on her sweater which was already starting to smell of pumpkin juice.

"Aren't we getting changed then?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as casual and controlled as possible. Harry and Ron mumbled something to each other before dragging their bags into another compartment to change. Hermione angrily pulled at her clothes and removed her red-lined Gryffindor robes from her bag.

"Hermione, where did you go? What's wrong?" asked Ginny, who hadn't even started changing yet. Ginny gripped Hermione's wrist between her fingers and stared intently at her.

Guessing that Ginny wasn't just going to let the matter drop, Hermione sat down dejectedly. She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know how she _felt _about what had just happened – she sat back for a moment, replaying the encounter in her head, considering everything she had felt back then; the fear of being spotted by him, the crazed lust when she realized that he was within touching distance, the pure hatred she had felt toward him when he had looked down at her condescendingly like a speck of dirt on his shoe before he had recognized her... her eyes narrowed. The main thing she could remember, the feeling that resonated in her the most was _anger. _Raw anger that had been compressed for too long. All summer she had moped around her house, feeling nothing but pain and hurt, showing nothing but tears and metaphorical battle scars. But now, _now _was the first time she was really feeling angry about the whole ordeal.

She didn't know the truth, she had no idea whether or not there was any trace of fact in what she was saying but, at that precise moment, she remembered what had happened on the platform when she had seen him exchange a warning glance with a fellow Slytherin. Without thinking, the words spilled from her mouth.

"Draco cheated on me," she heard herself say through gritted teeth. "Astoria Greengrass. It was Astoria Greengrass. He wanted her instead. That's why... that's why he broke up with me."

**That's all for now, folks! Chapter 7 will be up soon! **

**What did you think of Hermione losing it with her friends? Her first encounter with Draco since the break-up? Her angry lie at the end? Let me know! xx**


	7. Changes

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Chapter Seven – Changes:

By the time the Hogwarts Sorting Ceremony had begun, Draco's enthusiasm regarding his return to school had dropped to an all-time low. Normally, he would be sitting beside his old friends Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, making derogatory remarks aimed toward the terrified-looking first year students, standing up every so often to hurl an insult or two in the direction of the Gryffindor table across the vast hall. Today, however, on the occasion of this particular Sorting Ceremony, he didn't dare so much as hazard a glance toward the table on the other far side of the Great Hall. The thought of seeing her again, seeing the ice-cold sting in her previously warm chocolate brown eyes that he had felt the full force of on the train... he knew it would be too much to bear.

_You're being ridiculous, _he told himself sternly. _What on earth would your father think? Creeping around in the shadows and refusing to even look up, all because of some filthy little M- _He stopped himself. Not once, since his fourth year at Hogwarts, had he used that word, especially when talking about her. As much as he hated to admit it, Hermione Granger had changed him, changed him in a way that felt extremely, unexplainably permanent, a way that so many of his friends and relatives had commented on in a positive light. Although he knew he was still arrogant, jealous and hopelessly condescending, Hermione had taken his worst trait, his selfishness, and turned it on itself – she had believed that this particular flaw had been based on the absence of anything in his life that he really cared about, really needed. With nothing, nobody, to fuss over and protect, he had directed his entire sense of preservation and worry toward himself – that was, until Hermione had come along. When she had become a significant part of his life, even from the very early days of their relationship, he had found himself thinking less of Draco Malfoy and considerably more of Hermione Granger, a change that, according to his friends and especially his mother, was essential in order for him to grow as a person. It had come as a surprise to him to realize that he liked the feeling of having somebody to watch out for, somebody whose life he suddenly cared about more than his own. Now he felt like he was back at square one and all of his feelings, good and bad, were forcing themselves inward, crushing him, drowning him. It was unhealthy and, now more than ever, he knew he needed to push through it, fight the storm, and get on with his life. _It was for her own good, _he constantly told himself. _If you really love her, you'll let her go._

Reminding himself of how immature he was being, he clenched his jaw and finally looked up, turning his head so he could see between his fellow Slytherins sitting opposite him. He allowed his eyes a quick glance over the heads of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students before scanning the Gryffindor table, first calmly, nonchalantly, but becoming more and more frantic as it took him more time to locate her. When he did, he saw her turn her head sharply in the opposite direction, as though she had been staring at him before he had spotted her, and throw herself animatedly into a conversation with Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister, and Angelina Johnson, a striking, statuesque girl, now in her seventh year at Hogwarts, that Draco only knew from the Quidditch pitch; she played Chaser – extremely well, even in his opinion – for the Gryffindor team. Suddenly unable to withdraw his gaze from her, he watched as she leaned toward Ginny and whispered something into her ear. He glanced away, distracted by the sound of metal on china – Blaise had dropped his fork and it had clattered onto his plate – when he looked back at the girls, both of them were staring at him coldly. Despite her obvious efforts to be subtle, Draco saw Ginny's lips move, and Hermione cocked her head slightly to one side, listening to what she was saying. He refused to look away, refused to lose whatever game they were trying to play with him. His brow furrowed. Suddenly, a gentle, musical voice from his left hand side interrupted his staring competition with the Gryffindor girls.

"Draco, are you okay?" asked Astoria, her perfectly-shaped eyebrows pulling together. His head whipped around, and he realized he had already forgotten what she had just said. He was silent for a moment as he took in her heart-shaped face, her pixie-like features, her mouth which was constantly twisted into a slight, almost endearing smirk. 

"Yes, of course," he assured her, forcing a small smile and resting his elbow on the table, his temple on his hand. "Yeah. I'm okay." 

"You've hardly eaten, and you barely said a word on the train," she pressed, her pale green eyes wide with interest. 

"I promise, I'm fine," he told her, starting to pick self-consciously at the so far untouched steak and kidney pie on his plate.

It was only by accident that he had found himself sitting beside Astoria Greengrass. He glanced up once more at Hermione – Ginny withdrew her hand from the table instantly, having obviously been pointing at them a second earlier. Hermione's face was ghostly pale, and he saw her swallow hard. She shook her head slightly in his direction, intentionally or not, he wasn't sure, before dragging her eyes away from his and talking to Ginny once more, all previous hints of a smile having completely disappeared. For a moment he was confused, then his jaw fell slack in realization as he remembered what had happened that day on the platform.

_Draco stared into Astoria's face disbelievingly. The train was due to arrive in twenty minutes but, after hearing the news that Astoria had just relayed to him, he didn't feel as though he would have recovered the use of his legs during that time. He felt as though he would never move from that spot on the platform again._

"_You can't be serious," he said, shaking his head._

_She raised her eyebrows. "Of course I'm bloody serious. The owl arrived last week, and this is the first opportunity I've to talk to you since then. You know..." She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him from underneath her long black eyelashes. "It's like you've been avoiding me or something." She paused. "I'm surprised your parents haven't informed you too."_

_It was like the world had been put into slow motion. His eyes wandered to the large clock on the platform – the second hand ambled its way around the roman numerals far too slowly. The Hogwarts students that stood in clusters around them seemed to blur into one another, their actions exaggerated, their idle sounds and chatter disjointed and broken – it was like listening to a scratched record, a record in such poor condition that it deserved nothing more than to be thrown away._

"_But we're fifteen!" he protested, his temper flaring. "How can they expect us to, to-"_

"_Agree to shack up and procreate in just two years' time?" she finished crudely, her hand on her hip. "I can assure you, I'm no more keen on the idea than you are. I'm afraid that, let's say..." She stared around the platform, rubbing her chin theatrically. "Theodore, for example, is more my type than you'll ever be," she told him._

"_What the hell are they thinking?" he wondered angrily aloud, more for his own benefit than Astoria's._

"_Isn't it obvious?" she drawled, her eyes widening. She flicked her dark hair back over her shoulder. "They're scared, aren't they? Scared that we're going to find somebody else. You know, somebody different from us. Somebody who isn't..." _

"_Pure-blood." He knew it. He had known all along. _

"_Exactly," she said. "They can't stand the thought of having their bloodline tainted by somebody of a different blood status, or even worse, a Muggle-born. Can you imagine?" She shrugged exasperatedly. "You know how close our families are. Something like this was bound to happen eventually. After all, when You-Know-Who comes into power... well," she said, stepping closer and lowering her voice. "I guess I wouldn't want my children to be Mudbloods." For the first time in his life, he saw no trace of a smirk on Astoria Greengrass's face._

_He couldn't make himself believe or even hear the words coming out of Astoria's mouth. "I can't believe this," he fumed, turning to walk away from Astoria. He couldn't look at her face any longer_

"_You can't run away, Draco," he heard her say and, for the first time since he had met her, she sounded distressed. She sighed heavily, sadly. "You know we can't fight it."_

_He walked away, pulling his trunk slowly along behind him, and sat down on a bench that was well-hidden behind a large potted ficus. He held his head in his hands and felt the prick of tears in his eyes, but he wouldn't cry, especially not here. He sat back and closed his eyes, rubbing his temple with his fingertips. Everything that Astoria had just told him swirled around in his mind and he felt a pang, first of sadness, then of pure anger. _My father, _he thought to himself. He knew it straight away. Draco's mother knew was positively grateful for his relationship with Hermione – it had changed him from a rude, insufferable boy into a thoughtful young man who actually cared about something, someone, other than himself and his own interests. Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, had been angry, terribly so, when he had found out. Draco's father's favourite word when describing Draco's new girlfriend had been 'Mudblood', of course – in the first few months, Draco had felt more hatred for his own father than he ever had for anyone in his life. After a while, however, Lucius just stopped mentioning Hermione – her name became taboo, and anybody caught speaking about her was immediately chastised and warned of the dangers of fraternizing with Muggle-borns. The only times Draco and Narcissa spoke of her was when Lucius was at work, safely out of earshot. _Poor Mother, _he found himself thinking. _She couldn't have had any say in this.

_Draco never knew his father's hatred of Hermione – not just Hermione, but Hermione's _kind – _could ever stretch this far. Being angry, starting argument and refusing to mention her name were small, trivial things in comparison to forcing him into an arranged marriage at seventeen to a girl from one of the most powerful Pureblood families in Britain, a family already heavily associated with the Dark Arts. Astoria's parents, Ephraim and Lyra Greengrass, were rumoured to not only be Death Eaters, but part of Voldemort himself's inner circle, some of his most trusted followers._

And it looks like I'm heading the same way, _he thought to himself, pulling back his sleeve and glancing down at his Dark Mark. It was getting stronger every day and, according to his father, the Dark Lord was looking forward to testing Draco's abilities. Lucius had hinted that Draco was being considered for something of great importance. He knew that this next year would be pivotal. He could no longer stand on a knife edge. Somehow, in some way, he was going to lose his balance and fall off one side or the other._

_He couldn't take it all in. He laid his head back against the cool wood of the bench, willing himself to wake up, praying that he would open his eyes and find himself lying in his bed in the Slytherin dungeon, all of this having been a nightmare. His head hurt and he felt his stomach convulse – for a moment, he thought he was going to be sick. Something was clawing its way though his skin from the inside out – his heart ached, he felt himself begin to shiver, a bead of sweat gathered at the nape of his neck..._

"_Draco, what's the matter?" Hermione said frantically, lifting his head back up to face her with her hand. She felt his forehead and gasped as she realized how warm he was. His eyes met hers. "Tell me, Draco," she pleaded in a low voice. "What's wrong with you?"_

_And it was right then, at that precise moment, that he had made his decision, the decision that he knew would one day save her life._

"_I'm sorry, Hermione," he said, staring intently into her eyes, trying to keep his voice controlled. "We can't do this anymore. I think..." He swallowed. "I think we have to end it."_

He sighed heavily and pushed away his plate, feeling foolish for even thinking that his stomach would be able to handle eating anything after the memory he had just relived. Hermione and Ginny, he noticed, were no longer looking at him but, if he hadn't have know any better, he would almost have sworn he saw a tear slide down Hermione's pink cheek. He shook his head. _Hallucinating now,_ he thought to himself. _Whatever next? _After muttering a polite goodbye to Astoria and the rest of his friends, he stood up and walked as quickly as his legs would carry him to the Slytherin dungeon beneath the Great Lake. As soon as he walked into the dormitory he shared with Blaise, Theodore and Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch captain, he saw that his clothing was already unpacked, his trunk neatly pushed underneath his four-poster bed. He sat down, grateful that his friends were still at the feast and, for the first time in his memory, Draco Malfoy felt himself begin to cry.

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**So, what do you think? Did you like the revelation of what's happening between Draco and Astoria? What do you think of how I made her character sound? Any predictions on what's going to happen next? Chapter eight will be up soon! xxx**


	8. Unexpected

**Hey guys! Here it is – chapter eight! There's a long memory section in this chapter, so bear with me, hopefully these memories will help clear things up a bit! PLEASE KEEP CLICKING THAT REVIEW BUTTON!**

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Chapter Eight – Unexpected:

Hermione slept appallingly during her first night back at Hogwarts. She had been enjoying herself in the Gryffindor common room – being with her fellow students had served as an excellent distraction from both her anger at Draco and her guilt over the lie-that-may-not-be-a-lie she had told Ginny earlier – but, before long, as the start-of-term excitement began to wear off and students realized that they would be starting lessons early the next morning, the number of Gryffindors around her dwindled and people trickled off to bed. Soon enough, it was only Hermione, Ron and Harry left downstairs and, as the clock ticked past midnight, the boys rose out of their chintz armchairs, stretching tiredly.

"Well, g'night Hermione," yawned Ron, heading toward the curving staircase on the right that led to the boys' dormitories. "Wait," he said, turning to her again. "What do we have first thing in the morning?"

"History of Magic with the Slytherins – we've been over this, Ronald," she told him exasperatedly, shutting a bookmark inside her copy of _A Guide to Medieval Sorcery _and throwing it down on the oak table. She stared at it, unable to tear her gaze away, as she realized that her first lesson on her first day back would be shared with Draco Malfoy.

"Brilliant," said Ron, unsuccessfully stifling another yawn. "There's no such thing as lowering as back in gently after the holidays at this bloody school, is there? Binns'll have us writing an essay for homework tomorrow, I'd put five galleons on it." He began climbing the stairs with Harry in tow, who seemed to be stumbling slightly, presumably from exhaustion.

"Aren't you coming up, Hermione?" asked Harry, smiling slightly at her. "Continue with your, uh, 'light reading'..." He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers as he eyed the heavy, ancient-looking book she had been perusing earlier. "... in bed?"

"Yes, of course, I'll be up in a minute."

"Okay," said Harry, rubbing his forehead with his hand.

"Night," the boys chorused before turning on their heels and sloping off up the stairs.

The fire was low and the Gryffindor window drapes were pulled across, the combination of which filled the room with a dim, red-tinged light. The effect sent a shiver up Hermione's spine, yet strangely compelled her to stay in the room for a little longer – the shadowy corners promised secrets, a thousand mysterious lurking in the darkness of the eerily high tower ceiling. After systematically stacking the books she had brought downstairs with her (_A Guide to Medieval Sorcery, New Theory of Numerology _and _Moste Potente Potions_) in order of thickness, she sat back in the red plush sofa, stretching out her legs and closing her eyes. The earthy, sweet smell of Gryffindor Tower and the soft crackle of the fire eating away the logs could almost have been called relaxing. Although they did nothing to fill the black, aching void inside her – she had yet to find anything with the ability to achieve that – they numbed the raw edges of the open wound, anaesthetising her, a heavy, merciful dose of morphine after a life-shattering accident. She could feel consciousness slipping away from her, but made no attempt to cling on as she was pulled underneath a blissful wave of oblivion.

_Hermione couldn't remember ever feeling like this in her life. Ron's harsh words, his intensely irritated voice, kept replaying on an endless loop in her head and, every time it did, it made her head hurt and her eyes sting with tears. Their angry conversation still rang in her ears._

"_I want Harry to win the Triwizard Tournament! Harry knows that, don't you, Harry?" Hermione had cried, pressing her lips into a tight line and staring at Harry who stood awkwardly beside Ron. Harry opened his mouth but, before he could speak, Ron had piped up once more._

"_You've got a funny way of showing it," Ron had sneered. "Why don't you go and find _Vicky_," he had suggested, mockingly referring to Hermione's dance partner, Viktor Krum. "I expect he'll be wondering where you are."_

_A storm of emotions surged through her as she relived their heated exchange, ranging all the way from the angry need to slap him to the painful desire to curl up into a ball and leave the world behind for a while. The tension between them had been building up for too long, and tonight it had finally come to a long-overdue head. After meeting on the Hogwarts Express on their fateful first day at Hogwarts four years ago, Hermione's friendship with Ron had developed in a very different way to her relationship with Harry. While she saw Harry as a best friend, a close, brother-like consort, she had considered Ron in more ways, dropped into more categories, thought about him in ways that best friends tended not to. She could even picture her future with Ron – she could see them growing old together, living in a cottage in the countryside similar to the Burrow with four or five red-haired children running around their legs, Ron working for the Ministry as an Auror, Hermione commuting to Hogwarts everyday to maintain her post as Professor of Muggle Studies or perhaps a more hands-on, practical subject such as Transfiguration. Her gut instinct had told her that Ron planned to ask her to be his dance partner at the Yule Ball; she had believed he had considered the same future and was finally acting upon the feelings they both clearly shared. To her dismay, Hermione had been very much mistaken. One evening in the Gryffindor common room, an evening on which she had been feeling particularly fragile, she had heard Ron make one comment about her, one final, sarcastic, half-witted comment, and it had been the final straw. She had stormed out through the portrait hole and headed toward her haven, her own personal sanctuary – the Hogwarts Library. She had planned to sit down and bury her head in a book, lose herself among the pages, find solace in the tantalizing words and magical enigmas it would provide, but before she even sat down at her usual table, a certain visiting Bulgarian national Quidditch player had caught her eye, pulled her into a corner and invited her to the Yule Ball as his date. She had been thrilled, partly because she was going to the Ball with one of the most sought-after wizards of the age, but partly because she knew how much it would spite Ron to see them together._

_Now, however, as she sat down on the bottom step of the Grand Staircase in the Entrance Hall and pulled off the five-inch black stiletto heels that had been rubbing her uncomfortably all evening, she wanted nothing more than to go back in time three weeks and, barely able to believe she was considering it, just ask Ron to accompany her to the Ball herself. Although it didn't sound exactly like the fairytale outcome she had dreamed off, it sure would have saved a whole lot of problems. She wasn't in love with Ronald Weasley – of course she wasn't – but, from where Hermione was standing, it looked as though they were destined to be together one day. Love was sure to grow eventually, just like it always did in the trashy romance novels she was very partial to reading. Being in the presence of Viktor Krum, despite his sharp wit and dashing good looks that had graced so many covers of _Witch Weekly _magazine, set her nerves on edge and filled her with a constant fear of embarrassing herself by saying the wrong thing in response to his endless charm. Around Ron, however, nothing felt awkward. They could talk, joke and laugh about anything; it was pleasant, sweet and above all _easy _– easy as breathing, and all the while, it felt just as natural. Up until tonight, she had suspected that romance would blossom between them before long. Now, however, after Ron had laughed maliciously in her face and effectively denied her, given her and Viktor his bitingly sarcastic blessing, she couldn't see how they would be able to patch up their friendship this time. They had argued in the past, sure, all best friends did, but never like this. Wounds could be stitched back up but, if you stretched with too much vigour before the cut had been given a real chance to heal, the damage could sometimes be irreparable. She feared that this was the case now._

_A tear splashed onto the skin of her bare leg, shining and tainted by the make-up she wore on her eyes. She watched it run down past her knee and felt another one fall beside it, then another, then another, and, before she knew it, they were streaming from her eyes at such a rate that she knew she neither had the means nor the motive to stop them. Instead, she shuffled to the far side of the staircase, pulling her shoes with her, so that other students leaving the Ball early could pass without their attention being drawn so directly to the weeping girl at the foot of the stairs who appeared to be experiencing a mental breakdown. She wanted more than anything to drag herself back upstairs to her dormitory so that she could cry alone, but she suddenly seemed to be paralysed from the waist down and, try as she might, she couldn't force her legs to even allow her to stand up, let alone carry her up to Gryffindor Tower. _I don't care, _she thought, rubbing her eyes. _Let them see me. I don't care anymore.

_As she bowed her head and cradled it in her arms, trying to regulate her breathing, she heard a deep sigh and a pair of feet start climbing the stairs to her left. She glanced up and, catching sight of silver-blonde hair and a pair of shining grey eyes, immediately wished she hadn't – now she had drawn attention to herself, he stopped walking up the stairs and spun around to see who was crying. She turned to the wall, trying to hide her face, but he had already spotted her and was slowly descending the staircase once more, his eyes on her._

"_Granger? Is that you?" Draco asked and, to her surprise, there was no smile in his voice for once. Hermione refused to look round, refused to acknowledge his presence, attempting to feign deafness. "Where's Krum?" she heard him go on. "Did he ditch you?" he asked mockingly, walking past her so closely that his jet black dress robes touched the bare skin of her arm. She gritted her teeth. "Did he finally realize how much better he can do than to come to a Ball with a Mudblood?"_

_Unable to stop herself, she glared up at him, fully aware that her make-up was everywhere, her white-gold phoenix feather hair pin was askew and her cheeks were streaked with mascara-tainted tear tracks. She was never very good at putting up with his degrading comments, but tonight, she felt positively ready to strike out at him if he continued._

"_What do you want, Malfoy? I'm really not in the bloody mood," she informed him as coolly as she could manage, mentally cursing another tear as it rolled down her cheek. She hated to be seen by anybody in this state, nobody more so than Draco Malfoy._

_He raised his eyebrows as he took in her tear-stained face. In that moment, when his eyes were on her and her eyes stared into his, it looked as though his eyes were shining due to more than just the strange lighting in the Entrance Hall._

"_Have you been... crying?" she asked, his problems momentarily distracting her from her own._

"_Of course not," he told her flatly, his sleeve instantly flying to his eyes. His cheeks burned slightly. "I'm a Malfoy. We don't cry." He paused, moving to stand on the parquet floor at the bottom of the stairs. "Unlike Grangers, evidently."_

_She sniffed self-consciously, scraping a hand through her hair which was coming down from its sleek up-do. She pulled out the phoenix feather hair pin and clipped it to the hem of her dress. Very aware of his eyes on her, she stared down at his feet on the floor in front of her. "Crying isn't a part of my regular day-to-day schedule, if that's what you mean. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I cried, so don't think this is ordinary behaviour."_

"_Well, why are you doing it now, Granger?" he asked from above her. "Don't you care that everybody's staring at you?" She could hear the smirk in his voice._

"_I hadn't noticed," she retorted sarcastically. "Don't you have anything better to do than bother me, Malfoy? Like I said previously, I'm really not in the mood."_

_To her surprise, Draco laughed once without humour and sat down on the step beside her. Although he sat a good two feet away, she could feel warmth radiating from his pale skin. She blushed as she even considered this._

"_Au contraire, Granger, I think you are in the mood," he came back with instantly. "If this is so 'out of the ordinary' for you, don't you want to tell me what inspired you to become hysterical? If it doesn't happen very often, I wouldn't want to miss out on this opportune moment."_

"_Why on earth would I talk to you of all people about my problems?" she demanded icily, staring straight into his eyes for the first time, possibly, ever. She noticed, as she watched him, that his stormy grey eyes had flecks of pale green in them, making them look pale and bright in the strange lighting. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Draco opened his mouth to speak. At first no words came out, so he began again._

"_Because, after the little domestic I'm sure I just witnessed between you, Weasley and Potter, it doesn't look like you have very many friends to confide in anymore, Granger. Besides, I judged you a very, _very _long time ago. Nothing you tell me is likely to affect that." He smirked maliciously and cocked his head a little to once side._

_Shaking her head in disbelief at the words she was hearing, Hermione stood up from her spot at the foot of the Grand Staircase and turned to leave. "I don't have to listen to this," she said, picking up her shoes, a stony look on her face. She saw his torso rotate out of the corner of her eye has she began climbing the stairs._

"_Hermione, wait," he said from behind her. She turned – Draco was leaning slightly in the direction she had been heading, his arm outstretched as if to pull her back toward him. She raised her eyebrows and looked down at him, waiting to hear him out. "Neither of us have had the, ahem." He cleared his throat. "Evenings we wanted, shall we say?"_

"_Well, no..." she agreed vaguely, descending one step toward him._

"_Your friend Weasley already hates you for, hmm, how did he put it?" He rubbed his chin theatrically and made quotation marks with his index fingers. "'Fraternizing with the enemy?' I believe I, too, fall into that category. Why not make the most of the opportunity? Do something you're going to regret? Surely, for one evening, it couldn't hurt." _

_Draco smiled, patting the step beside him, indicating that she should sit down. She did so a little too willingly, mulling over everything he had just said. In all honestly, she hadn't heard a lot of it. The last couple of sentences had yet to be processed in her logical brain and still sounded like gibberish ringing in her ears. She was still trying to get over the shock, the pleasant wave of surprise, that Draco Malfoy, whether knowingly or not, had called Hermione by her first name._

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**So what do you think so far? How will events unfold next? Who do you think is going to make the first move? Any predictions? Chapter nine will be up soon! xxx**


	9. Lies

**Hey guys! Chapter nine's here! Rather than doing a single character's viewpoint in each chapter, I decided to change halfway through, just to shake things up a bit. Keep clicking that review button, and as always, thanks so much for taking the time to read this! This is a pretty angst-filled chapter – I'm not in a particularly good mood tonight – and it definitely comes through, particularly toward the end. I hope you guys are happy – it's 2:38am and here I am, writing like a trooper to get chapter nine up before I go to sleep! :D I joke, I joke. Enjoy!**

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Chapter Nine – Lies:

When he awoke from yet another night of restless tossing and turning, his eyelids heavy, Draco dressed in his school robes and headed along the brightly lit, Slytherin banner-strewn passageway toward the common room. In the Slytherin residential quarters, it was clear that house loyalty played a large part in the lives of every student; green Quidditch banners, serpent-decorated items of clothing, the silver-green colour scheme of the decor itself – every Slytherin student showed a strong sense of patriotism in regards to their house. Many Slytherins, possibly the majority, were from ancient pure-blood families, all of which would have been disappointed, some even _ashamed, _had their children, the carriers of their bloodline, been sorted into a house other than that of the great Salazar Slytherin. Draco would be lying if he said that he hadn't been slightly nervous in his first year when he had been sorted – with generation after generation of Malfoys having prowled the Hogwarts corridors with the Slytherin crest emblazoned across their chests years before him, he had known what the repercussions of being sorted into a different house would have been. The thought of his father staring down his nose at him as though he was some sort of animal, subhuman, was more than he could stand. He remembered breathing a sigh of relief when, almost instantly, the battered old Sorting Hat had yelled 'Slytherin!' from atop Draco's head.

The heavily frosted glass skylights on the ceiling allowed streams of dazzling, green-tinged light to pass through and cast shapes on the tiled floor – it was common knowledge among Hogwarts students that the Slytherin common room lay hidden beneath the Great Lake. Draco sat down on one of the dark brown, green-trimmed leather sofas and watched as a bright beam of greenish light faded to a shadow then to light again – occasionally, a shoal of Grindylows or, even less often, the Hogwarts giant squid, would pass over the skylights at the bottom of the Lake, causing the dancing beams of light to fade and then reappear eerily. He unfolded his timetable from inside his robes, having not looked at it since receiving it the previous night, and frowned as he saw that the Slytherin sixth year students were due to have History of Magic with Professor Binns, a withering old ghost, and the Gryffindors first thing that morning. After what had happened at the start-of-term feast, he was not looking forward to encountering Hermione. Praying he wouldn't see her at breakfast, he rose from his seat, sighed and clambered through the enchanted wall that led into the Slytherin common room.

Burying his hands in his pockets, Draco set off along the cold passageway that opened out in no time at all into the Hogwarts Dungeons. As he was about to ascend the curving marble staircase that would carry him to the Entrance Hall, a voice, like the gentle peal of bells, sounded from a shadowy corner.

"Hello, stranger."

He turned around, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, to see Astoria Greengrass walking slowly toward him, her shoes clattering against the cool stone floor. She smirked as she approached him, eyeing his body, his height, his pale face. Draco was several inches taller than her but, after seeing her sarcastic, almost expectant grin and cocky, over-confident tone of voice as she had waited for him in the dim torch light, he suddenly felt very small.

"What are you doing?" he asked as confidently as possible. For some reason unbeknown to Draco, he found it very difficult to formulate his thoughts into sentences around her. Nobody made Draco Malfoy tongue-tied, nobody since... he didn't allow himself to think of her name. "You really shouldn't hang around down here. You never know what might be lurking in dark corridors." He smirked back at her, feeling tall once more.

"It's a good job you turned up then, isn't it?" she retorted, circling him with the same predatory concentration of a tiger cornering a feeble antelope. She stopped directly in front of him, looking him up and down calculatingly. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh, stop it, Astoria, I'm blushing," he crooned sarcastically, starting up the stairs.

"Will you not even escort me to breakfast? Would you really just leave me here to fend for myself?" She gasped, her charming face becoming a mask of mock horror. "Just as I was starting to think you were a gentleman."

Draco couldn't help but laugh out loud. He turned to face her, only to find that she was a lot closer to him than he had expected – she stood on the step beside him, her face only inches from his. He felt her warm breath on his skin and watched her lips curl into a small smile. He sucked in a sharp breath, inhaling the scent of her perfume, trying to think of what to say but suddenly unable to come up with a single rational thought. Astoria laughed once, an enchanting, hypnotic sound, and began winding her way up the stairs. Before he knew it, Draco was following her, their footsteps perfectly in time.

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"Hermione, you've got to eat," said Ginny, spooning miniature hash browns onto Hermione's plate and taking a sip from her goblet of pumpkin juice. "I hope you don't intend to carry on like this," she added, noticing Hermione's pained grimace. "You'll have wasted away to nothing by Christmas."

"Carry on like what?" asked Hermione, picking up her fork a little too quickly and spearing a bacon rasher. "I don't know what you mean." She nibbled on the bacon but, like anything she had tried eating recently, it was too heavy, too dense in her mouth, and her throat constricted uncomfortably, reflexively around it. Feeling as though she might suffocate if she attempted to eat any more, she gently placed her fork back down on her plate and satisfied herself instead by pouring orange juice into a goblet. It tasted tart and tangy, exactly as it should – the familiar taste was a regular fixture in her daily routine, and it filled her with a sense of normalcy, a sense that, no matter how wrong everything felt to Hermione these days, something in her life was still fine, still right, still functioning properly. She had drank orange juice since before her time with Draco and it was no more difficult to drink it now than it had been then – something had stayed the same, not everything had changed, the world hadn't ended when he had ended their relationship. Life went on. She knew it was a silly way of looking at things, but it was logical and it _worked_, just how Hermione liked it.

She blinked, realizing that she had been staring into space. More and more students were trickling into the Great Hall – having been among the early risers that morning, Hermione and Ginny had been at breakfast for a good twenty five minutes before the majority of the other Hogwarts students had arrived. She glanced over at the Slytherin table on the opposite side of the Hall, seeing no flash of silver-blonde hair, no gleam of stormy grey eyes. Not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed about this, she gazed around at the rest of the student sat at the far table. Draco's friend Theodore Nott, a sharp sixteen-year-old with a bewitching sense of humour, gave her a small smile when he saw her looking. Hermione returned the smile willingly, glad to see that at least one of the Slytherin boys she had befriended during her relationship with Draco had not decided to sever all ties with her now that she wouldn't be such a recurrent sight in their common room. Opposite Theodore with his back to Hermione sat the easily recognizable figure of Blaise Zabini – his hair had been cropped close to his head over the holidays and, to her surprise, his fingers were interlaced on top of the table with another Slytherin Hermione identified as Lucinda Zenderfly, a plain, Quidditch-playing girl she had only ever seen in passing. _I didn't know Blaise had a girlfriend_, thought Hermione, picking at the hash browns Ginny had dumped on her plate. She sighed and shook off the thought. _Then again, why would I? It's not like they're really my friends anymore..._

The large mahogany doors to the Great Hall swung open yet again, catching Hermione's eye and triggering a tidal wave of emotions in her heart as she watched Draco Malfoy saunter into the Hall with slightly more of a spring in his step than he had had the previous night, accompanied by Astoria Greengrass who looked very much as though someone had just told her an amusing joke. Hermione's jaw fell slack as she saw Astoria murmur something to him – Draco simply nodded and followed her to the Slytherin table, where they sat down near Theodore, Blaise and Lucinda. After they exchanged greetings with their fellow Slytherins, Astoria turned her torso and rested her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, very much cutting off the other three from them, separating their group into a pair and a trio. From where Hermione was sitting, Theodore had noticed it too – his brow furrowed as he glanced sideways curiously at Astoria and Draco, before smoothing out his expression once more and starting to chat to Blaise and Lucinda again.

"Hermione, I'm talking to you," said Ginny from her side. She tore her eyes away from the scene she was witnessing with great difficulty.

"I'm sorry, Ginny, what did you say?" asked Hermione, feeling extremely impolite at having to ask.

"I said," began Ginny. Suddenly, unconsciously, Hermione's eyes flicked once more to Astoria and Draco, then back to Ginny. "Uh..." Ginny raised her eyebrows. "What's the problem?" she asked, turning her head to where Hermione had been looking.

"Nothing," Hermione assured her animatedly. "What were you saying?"

But it was too late. Ginny was staring around the Great Hall in the direction Hermione had been glancing earlier, her dark red eyebrows pulling together in confusion. "What..." she started, but never had to finish. Her eyes suddenly connected with the pair Hermione had been noticed earlier, and her jaw dropped. She watched them for a moment, then stood up and began striding down the length of the Gryffindor table. Hermione shot up and followed her best friend, trying to keep up with her.

"Ginny, please..." she begged, her hand coming into contact with Ginny's angular shoulder.

"No way, Hermione. I honestly cannot believe him, what a pig!" Ginny fumed, her straight red hair streaming behind her as she hurried forward. "Coming in here all doe-eyed like that with Greengrass in front of everybody, in front of you..."

Draco looked up at Ginny, his eyes wide, as she approached angrily with a tearful-looking Hermione in tow behind her. She planted her feet firmly on the ground and placed a hand on her hip.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a complete and utter _arse_, Malfoy?" Ginny fired at him, her eyes narrowed.

"You what, Weasley?" he asked hotly, a look of genuine confusion crossing his face.

"You, and _her_." Ginny jabbed a finger in Astoria's direction. Astoria cocked her head up at Ginny, a mystified pout replacing her usual smirk. Draco stood up and faced Ginny head-on. Noticing that he was taller than her, Ginny puffed out her chest, pushed her shoulders back and drew herself up to her full height. "How dare you sneak around with _that _while you're going out with my best friend? Then bloody well dump her because of it?"

Draco looked dumbstruck – his mouth fell open, his eyes narrowed and livid.

"And how do you know this, Weasley?" he asked her quietly, controlling his temper.

"She told me! Hermione told me! Remember her? Your _ex-_girlfriend?" Ginny held out her hands angrily. "She told me! You cheated on her! Don't act all innocent, I know what you did!" she exclaimed.

Hermione stared at the ground, feeling her eyes brimming with tears. Her face was hot, too hot, and she felt a bead of sweat dew up at the nape of neck. Why did she have to tell that stupid lie in the first place? Why couldn't she have just admitted to Ginny that she was still heartbroken over the break up, the break up that had happened for a reason Draco had not explained? With great reluctance and difficulty she looked up at Draco, and immediately wished she hadn't. In his stormy grey eyes was an emotion she had never seen there before, a dreadful, heart-breaking, fearsome expression of anger... and it was directed at her. Although she stood behind her friend, his rage-filled eyes burned her skin, and she felt a single tear slide down her cheek.

"Did she now?" he asked quietly, staring downwards, obviously using all the energy in his body to control himself. His jaw clenched. "That's interesting. Very interesting." He looked up at the Gryffindor girls, down at Astoria, who looked like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights, then up again, shaking his head slightly.

And with one final contemptuous glance at Hermione, he swept away from them and out of the Great Hall.

"Tell your boyfriend he can rot in hell," Ginny told Astoria bitterly. "Come on, Hermione," she said, grabbing Hermione by the arm and pulling her away toward the doors.

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**So, tell me what you think! Review review review! What did you think of the perspective change? Draco's encounter with Astoria in the dungeon? Any predictions on what turn their relationship will take? What about Ginny's argument with Draco? Let me know what you think, and look out for chapter ten! xxx**


	10. Desire

**Hey everyone! Well, here it is, chapter ten! And it's the longest chapter yet! Let me know what you think – this is my first ever kind of romantic scene. I've only ever kissed one person, haha, so I probably did a terrible job on the gory details... but whatever, review and tell me how I did!**

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Chapter Ten – Desire:

Draco stormed across the Entrance Hall, his teeth grinding together, his pale hands fisted at his sides, red-tinged and shaking. He clenched his fists more and more tightly, feeling his fingers grow hot, his palms sweaty, until his recently uncut fingernails dug so ferociously into his skin that they drew blood. He cursed, not even bothering to keep his voice down – he knew that the use of foul language was prohibited in the Hogwarts corridors, but nothing at all, no punishment whatsoever that a teacher inflicted upon him could possibly make his head sting and his heart ache more than they already did. He licked at the half-moon-shaped cuts he had made in his hands to stem the thin, half-hearted stream of blood that was now flowing past his knuckles and angrily pushed his fingers through his silver-blonde hair; it felt coarse and straw-like beneath his touch. As he stomped down the stairs to the dungeons, he suddenly became very aware of himself – his robes felt restricting and uncomfortable against his skin, the neck of his white Oxford shirt overly-tight and suffocating. Loosening his green-and-silver striped tie and pulling so hard on his collar that the top two buttons came free from their cotton constraints with a small popping sound, he released a deep, heavy breath and closed his eyes. He saw stars in the darkness, a flash of flame-red hair, heard Ginny Weasley's furious accusations ringing in his ears, watched a slowed-down replay of Hermione's guilt-stricken, tear-streaked face contort in panic and fear...

When he reached the Slytherin common room, he threw himself down onto a leather sofa and threw his head back, looking and feeling very much like a man with no idea who he was or what to do anymore. The entire Slytherin residential quarters appeared to be empty – the absence of his friends' lively chatter, other students sitting around doing homework and music blaring from the dormitories told him that breakfast was almost over and that his first timetabled lesson would soon commence. History of Magic with Professor Binns was always a painful drag but, with the added presence of Hermione Granger, his frustrating, lying ex-girlfriend who he had no desire to speak to or even have to _see _anytime soon, alongside the rest of her fellow Gryffindor fifth-years, it was sure to be an even more excruciating experience than usual. He stood up and began to make his way to his dormitory, but the thought of Hermione and the blatant lie she seemed to have fed her Gryffindor friends made his hands start to shake and his face grow hot once more. He paused by the dark stone wall, exhaled sharply and aimed a hard punch at the bricks. His knuckles throbbed and he felt the half-moon-shaped wounds reopening in response to the impact, but he threw another punch at the wall, then another, then another. Several blows later, his biceps screaming in protest, he withdrew his hand, wiping several bloody gashes on his robes. A quick glance at the coiled serpent-shaped clock told him that his first lesson of the day began in seven minutes and, as irate as he felt, as much as he would have liked to continue pounding the hard wall to distract from his emotional scars for a little while longer, the thought of receiving a detention on his first day back was something he could not be bothered to deal with and, although he hated to admit it, he didn't want to give Hermione the satisfaction of knowing that she was the reason he was absent. He groaned out loud before leaving the common room.

When he reached Professor Binns' classroom, the Slytherin and Gryffindor students had already filed in and had taken their seats. Everybody in the room glanced up at him. Professor Binns, an impossibly ancient-looking man and the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts, raised his eyebrows and stared disapprovingly at Draco over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Thank you for joining us, Mr Malfoy," said the ghost disparagingly, floating around his desk and picking up a stack of papers. "Take a seat, please."

Draco absently grunted a half-hearted apology in Professor Binns' direction and looked around the classroom for an empty seat. His eyes momentarily connected with a chocolate brown pair and, as he glared into them then instantly, coldly, looked away, he could have sworn he saw them fill with tears. For the first time since ending their relationship, Draco felt no guilt in regards to seeing Hermione looking so pained. On his left, toward the back of the room, Theodore waved at him idly, a slightly suspicious expression on his face. He headed toward him and slung his bag down from his shoulder onto the floor beneath the desk.

"What's wrong with your hands, mate?" asked Theodore in a whisper as Professor Binns began his lecture on how magical education in Europe had changed over the last century. The rest of the students in the class had fervently started to make notes, but Draco felt unable to summon any enthusiasm.

"Nothing I can't deal with," said Draco flatly, trying to make it as clear as possible that he did not want to discuss the matter further.

The first half of the double period passed at a ridiculously slow rate. Draco found himself staring up at the clock more and more frequently, feeling sure that someone had bewitched its hands to move at a fraction of their usual speed. His eyes kept wandering to the back of Hermione's head, watching as she shook out her hair, glanced up at Professor Binns and feverishly pored over her notes. Every so often she would surreptitiously lean sideways and look behind her, occasionally catching his eye – whenever this happened, Draco would suddenly become very interested in his shoes or the pattern on the parquet floor, trying not to make it obvious that he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Somebody nearby, a girl, it seemed, with a gentle, melodic voice, cleared their throat pointedly. He turned his head sharply in the direction the sound came from to see Astoria smirking at him from the row behind, two desks from his right. She sat diagonally behind Parvati Patil from Gryffindor, and she held a crumpled piece of parchment in her hand – every now and then, Astoria would tear off a piece of parchment, scrunch it up into a ball and toss it gently toward Parvati, and every time, it magically stuck to the back of her robes. Astoria and her friend Dawn Stimpton snickered as Parvati continued to go about her business, unaware of the gravity-defying parchment mountain that was growing ever-larger on her back. Draco raised his eyebrows, unimpressed by their childish game, and turned to face the front again.

A few seconds later, a piece of parchment, folded into the shape of an elegant swan, landed on top of his closed notes folder. He stared at it for a moment before turning back to Astoria, who had her wand out and was making green sparks shoot from its tip into the air like miniature fireworks. She winked at him. He faced forward and unfolded the piece of parchment.

'**Stop being so twitchy,' **he read. **'You're making me nervous.' **The note was written in Astoria's eloquent, curly script and was signed with a heart so tiny that Draco actually brushed the surface of the page with his hand, making sure it wasn't just a speck of dust.

He felt his heartbeat increase in tempo as he read the words, before bending down to remove a quill from his school bag and writing a reply on his own piece of parchment.

'**I recommend you concentrate on your work then, rather than focusing your attention on me,' **he wrote. He pulled his wand out from inside his robes and waved it once, remembering a neat charm his mother had taught him that forced any parchment to fold itself neatly into the form of a dove. He held it in the palm of his hand, blew lightly on its tail feathers and watched as it beat its little wings and flew to rest on Astoria's desk. He smiled slightly to himself, impressed by the perfect execution with which he had carried out the spell. Astoria obviously noticed his smug expression and gave him a theatrical, sarcastic round of applause before unfolding his note. Her reply followed quickly, again in the form of a swan.

'**For somebody who's 'concentrating on their work', you don't seem to have taken many notes.'**

He laughed once silently, shaking his head, before tossing her note above him and burning it to ash in the air. He heard her musical laugh sound from behind him, out loud.

"Miss Greengrass," said Professor Binns, removing his glasses. "Would you care to share the source of your evident amusement with the rest of the class?"

Astoria stood up – a formality that the old-fashioned Professor Binns demanded when his students spoke to him – and faced him.

"No, Professor, it's nothing. Sorry, Professor." Binns nodded, gesturing that she should take her seat once more. She smiled, amused, before picking up another piece of parchment from her desk and beginning to scrawl upon it once more. When it landed on Draco's desk, he found himself unfolding it quickly, with a little too much enthusiasm clear on his face.

'**I'm taking a walk,' **he read, his fingertips tracing over the words. **'Care to join me?' **

Before he had the opportunity to face her, he caught a glimpse of Astoria's raised hand out of the corner of his eye.

"What now, Miss Greengrass?" asked Binns exasperatedly, watching Astoria rise from her seat.

"Can I go to the bathroom please, Professor?" she asked carefully, smiling serenely at the ghost.

After receiving a grunt of approval from Professor Binns, Astoria picked up her things, evidently not planning on returning before the end of the lesson, and sauntered out of the room. Draco watched her back as she strolled down the corridor outside and ducked behind a corner. Before she disappeared entirely, however, she poked her head back around, peering into the classroom again, and smiled at him, not one of her usual ironic smirks, but a proper smile, a smile he had never truly seen before, a smile that stole the breath he was about to take, a smile that, although fleeting, promised secrets and surprises and demanded he follow her. _Don't do it, _he told himself resentfully. _You know what you'll be getting yourself into._ His mind having lost the internal debate with his heart, he watched as Binns floated toward the cupboard beside his desk, presumably to retrieve some more parchment or textbooks, and, the moment his white, translucent back was turned, he rose hurriedly from his seat, grabbed his bag and stealthily left the room. A couple of heads turned in his direction as he moved, the only ones of any real interest to him being his best friend Theodore Nott, who shot a confused glance in his direction, and Hermione Granger, shaking her head in realisation as she watched him vanish through the classroom door. No one would say anything. No one would notify Binns of his swift departure from the lesson. _They wouldn't dare, _he assured himself. _They know who I am. They know what I'm capable of._

These thoughts surprised him. He couldn't remember the last time he had made harsh, violent mental judgements and threats such as these. Not within the last year or so, it couldn't have been... he rolled his eyes as he remembered what everybody had told him almost non-stop for the last eighteen months about the mysterious Muggle-born girl who had taken Draco Malfoy's heart and flipped it upside-down, turned it inside-out, toyed with him, manipulated his emotions until they were unrecognisable. Although he had been told it was a welcome change, right then, he felt as though something that had been caged for a long time was starting to break free, starting to realise its full potential and everything it could do. Something snapped. It was Astoria that was making him feel this way. This desire to be rebellious again, to do something on the spur of the moment without wondering if he would regret it... he knew it could be attributed to her sudden presence in his life.

He wandered along the deserted second-floor corridor, looking out for a sign of her, a whirl of dark brunette hair, a flash of pale green eyes, a glimpse of that smile she had given him moments earlier. Out of pure curiosity, he stuck his around the girls' bathroom door, wondering if she had genuinely decided to make a stop here. After discovering the bathroom was empty, he proceeded along the corridor past two adjacent broom cupboards, considering whether or not she had simply lured him out of his lesson to get him into trouble. He sighed, craning his neck around a corner to peer along the rest of the corridor. Suddenly, he gasped – he felt a hand tighten around his wrist and another clap down over his mouth, silencing his moans of protest.

"Please don't scream," said a musical voice quietly in his ear. "People will think I'm out here with a girl and I wouldn't want to start talk," she told him sarcastically, pulling her hand back from his mouth, the other still clasped around his wrist.

"Fancy seeing you here," he said indifferently, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth. Astoria's grasp loosened and her hand slipped down, catching his. The electricity that flowed between them was almost tangible.

"Mr Malfoy!" boomed a voice several hundred meters away. It was the unmistakable drone of Professor Binns. "How dare you leave my lesson! How dare-"

But before he could catch the end of the angry ghost's sentence, Astoria had kicked open the door of the nearest of the two broom cupboards and pulled him inside after her, shutting the door behind them as gently as she could so as not to alert Binns of their presence. Draco leaned backwards against the wood of the door, his heart pounding.

"Bloody hell," she whispered, pressing her body against his and resting her head on the door, listening for any noise outside. Draco smelt her aroma – he inhaled, breathing in the scent of the shampoo that wafted from her dark locks. She moved her head back from the door but didn't move her body so much as an inch. Staring up at him, she pushed her hand through his silver-blonde hair, then trailed it down the side of his lean body. Something clicked, the mechanical sound of a key turning in a lock. Astoria lifted the old brass key she had just locked them in with in front of her face, waving it under his nose slowly.

"It appears that we're locked in," she said, smiling, lifting her face to his so that their noses touched, their lips maddeningly close.

Instinctively he leant forward slightly, allowing their lips to brush. She held his hand and guided it to her waist, where it hovered hesitantly.

"Astoria, I don't know if I..." he began, his voice almost inaudible. "What if... I... Hermione..."

"Then tell me to stop," she purred, before she crushed her lips to his. He moaned softly against her mouth, feeling her tongue flick along the line of his lower lip, very much taking charge of the kiss. She moved her hands demandingly to both of his sides, pushing against the wooden door, trapping him in her embrace. He was her prisoner, and he was enjoying it. His fingers tangled in her hair.

"Say my name again, Draco Malfoy," she whispered against his mouth, her lips tasting of sweet longing and sin. "Say it," she repeated, biting slightly on Draco's lower lip – he tasted the metallic, rust-and-salt tang of blood as the delicate skin broke. It was an electrifying pain, one he wanted to savour for as long as he could.

"Astoria..." he murmured, stepping away from the wall but never breaking the kiss, and standing where she had stood previously, forcing them to switch positions. His hand moved to her wrist and lifted it high above her head, pinning her arm against the door. He felt her smile against his lips.

Astoria made him feel strange, different from how he had ever felt before. Only directly, nothing long-term – his heart didn't ache when they were separated as it had when he was with Hermione, he didn't crave her presence and attention every hour of the day. His feelings for Astoria were very different; they were not as deep, not as whole, but they were present nonetheless. In Hermione's chocolate brown eyes, he saw happiness, completeness, a future. In Astoria's pale green, however, he saw something else, something new – he saw adrenaline, lust, a carnal, animalistic desire to do something people would disapprove of him for, something reckless, something _wrong_... he wanted to run with her through the night without a cautious look back. This wasn't about love. It was about raw _need. _There was no love and he knew there never would be. Hermione was the girl he had fallen for, the girl he had shared so many beautiful memories with and – he gasped, shocked at himself for finally formulating the thoughts into a complete, unspeakable sentence – the girl he knew he could never stop loving for as long as he would live.

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**Keep pressing that review button! How was the broom cupboard scene? What did you think of Draco's anger toward Hermione? How about this turn Draco and Astoria's relationship has taken? PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Tell me if you love it or if you absolutely cannot stand it! xxx**


	11. Opposites Attract

**Hey guys! Here's chapter eleven, but before I go ahead, can I just say something which may answer one of my reviewers' questions from the last chapter – as this is a Fanfiction, events are not directly in canon with the actual series. For all intents and purposes, in this story, Astoria Greengrass is in the same year group as Hermione and Draco. Hopefully that cleared things up a little anyway, enjoy!**

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Chapter Eleven – Opposites Attract:

_The huge clock at the top of the Astronomy Tower tolled midnight – twelve deep, thunderous chimes boomed out across Hogwarts, echoing through the corridors, reverberating across the high ceilings, notifying all who remained in the Great Hall that the Yule Ball had come to an end. Both students and teachers alike trickled out through the wide doors and headed off to bed, many red and sweating from dancing, their arms around dance partners, their faces set with exuberant grins. The Yule Ball had been a great success – one of the best formal dances in the entire history of Hogwarts, without question – everybody had spent the night doing the things that they loved, celebrating their youth as well as the Triwizard Tournament, partaking in activities ranging from lively dancing accompanied by the glamorous rock-and-roll band the Weird Sisters to drinking the Three Broomsticks' very own homemade mulled mead and toasting the wonderful memories they had created there that night. Everybody in the school had been so preoccupied with immortalising the evening, making it one the school would be hard done by to forget, that they hadn't noticed the absence of two fourth year students, one from Slytherin house, the other from Gryffindor, from their midst, both of whom had been present at the festivities until around ten pm., around which time one had slipped out, her face stained with tears, and the other had quickly followed._

"_I still can't believe you let Weasley get to you so much," Draco informed Hermione, cracking open his fifth bottle of mulled mead with his teeth and taking a haphazard swig. "Not trying to offend you," he assured her hastily, holding his hands up. He had been taught several times already that evening that Hermione Granger's temper was like a tropical storm – volatile, explosive and unpredictable. Having already been in a snarky mood when he had first found her, he had leant the hard way that the slightest insult, the tiniest degrading comment could trigger the lightning in an instant. "But you of all people can do better than that low-life piece of dragon dung," he went on, inadvertently slurring these last two alliterative words. "Fair play to you coming with Krum..." He paused. Hermione had elbowed his side and now held her hand in front of his face expectantly. Laughing once, he handed the bottle of mulled mead to her. She raised the neck to her lips and swallowed down half of the bottle's contents in three gulps before handing it back to him, her fingers quivering. Draco continued. "But I reckon you could do even better. Especially if you looked like you do right now more often." These words surprised him – they sounded strange coming out of his mouth. Although he was only voicing what he had been clandestinely thinking all evening, saying the words out loud made them almost tangible and undeniably real. _She's not going to remember anything I say now in the morning, _his alcohol-befuddled brain told him._

_Hermione laughed manically, so much so that her chocolate brown, slightly-clouded eyes began to water. "You're funny, Malfoy," she said. "Bloody hilarious."_

"_So we're back on last-name terms again then, are we, Granger?" he asked sarcastically, feeling his head start to swim. His vision went foggy for a moment as a wave of head-rush hit him. "Whoa," he groaned, lying back on the staircase. To his surprise, Hermione lay down beside him, rubbing her temple with her fingertips. He could vaguely see that students were passing them in small clumps as they made their way upstairs to bed – when the clock had first chimed midnight, Draco had been shocked that he and Hermione had been sat on the bottom step talking for over two hours. The time had passed unimaginably quickly._

"_You do know its gone midnight, right?" she asked bitingly, looking across at him mistily. "Shouldn't you go and kiss Parkinson goodnight before she has some sort of withdrawal-related aneurysm?" Hermione smirked uncharacteristically._

_Draco scowled at the thought of his dance partner. "I could say ask you the same thing about Krum," he said, his eyes on hers. "Although I'm sure he'll be the one doing all the kissing," he added in a theatrically hushed tone, his voice thick with implications._

_Hermione shot up at these words, swaying slightly as she did so. "And what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded, her voice squeaking at the end of the sentence._

_He immediately knew he had overstepped the mark, the invisible, unspoken-of line they had drawn at the start of the conversation that separated drunken banter and personal issues, but, not wanting to infuriate her further, he attempted to explain his point. "I guess..." He laughed, certain that what he was about to say would spark the stick of dynamite that was her temper. "I just don't have you down as the, you know, touchy-feely, romantic type." Hermione just stared at him, her jaw slack, her eyes wide with mildly irritated confusion. She nodded and made a gesture that implored him to expand on what he had said. "I'm in no position to be judging what with my lack of recent success in the romance department," he admitted lazily. "But come on Granger, while we're being honest, have you ever properly kissed a boy?" His jaw clenched tightly and he bit down on his tongue to stop himself muttering an apology – although the look on her slightly red face made him instantly regret asking, and despite the alcohol-induced enchantment he was under, he was still Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy didn't apologize to anybody for love nor money, especially somebody like Hermione Granger. Just because he was seeing her in a whole new light tonight, old habits could only die hard and he had no immediate desire to test that theory._

"_Why on earth would I answer that question?" she asked angrily, her already flushed cheeks blanching. She folded her arms instinctively, defensively. "What makes you think... I don't..." Hermione trailed off, staring at something in the distance, her eyes crossing slightly._

_Draco sniggered. "That'll be a 'no', then." It wasn't a question, but a statement._

"_I can't believe you would just... why would..." She broke off, her eyes coming back into focus. She sighed, turning to face him again, and said sheepishly, "I guess you're right."_

_Draco sat up beside her, completely shocked that Hermione had revealed this information to him. He had never seen her look so genuinely embarrassed and _vulnerable_ – the usually haughty and unruffled Hermione now sat with her hands folded in her lap, her cheeks red, a thousand questions and curiosities suddenly burning in her eyes. Her ash brown hair was falling down in places from the sleek bun it had started the night in the form of, and traces of her make-up, now almost completely gone, still tainted the peaches-and-cream semi-circles above her high cheekbones. "Hermione Granger," he said slowly, his headache ebbing away somewhat. He chuckled once. "Never been kissed."_

_To his surprise, Hermione laughed with him. "I know," she giggled. "It's just ever so slightly pathetic. It's meant to be an 'unforgettable experience', the glory of first love and all, fireworks going off inside your head, blah blah," she ranted, shaking her head. "But whatever." He could tell she was putting on a brave face._

"_Ever so slightly pathetic," he repeated sarcastically._

_It was at that moment he realized that he had been staring at their feet for quite some time. Feeling silly for not noticing earlier, he looked up again quickly, just as Hermione did exactly the same thing. Subconsciously he found himself gently shuffling along the step, inching closer to where she sat. She moved slightly too, readjusting her position, accommodating for his increasingly close proximity to her. Neither of them spoke. Hermione's brow furrowed slightly as she gazed at him. Draco felt very much like an actor in a silent movie – everything had changed from Technicolor to greyscale in an instant, everything except him and Hermione. Nothing made a sound around them, although he knew students were still strolling noisily past them on the way back from the Yule Ball. It was as though they had slipped inside a thick, impenetrable bubble of air. He saw her chin tilt downwards, she moved her face closer to his, he could smell the heavenly, almost intoxicating scent of her skin mixed with whatever perfume she was wearing and all he wanted to do was drown in it..._

"_Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger," said a distinctive voice through the wall of the bubble. Draco tore his gaze from Hermione and looked up to see Professor McGonagall standing over them. "The Yule Ball ended twenty minutes ago. Uh..." McGonagall raised her eyebrows, obviously surprised at seeing them sitting so near to each other. She eyed the empty mulled mead bottles disapprovingly. "If you would kindly make your way up to bed now."_

"_Sorry, Professor," Hermione mumbled, not once looking away from Draco, who didn't say anything._

"_Yes, well, goodnight, and merry Christmas." And with that, she swept away from them up the Grand Staircase without a look back._

_This was where they would part. Standing up, Hermione sighed and said, "Well, believe it or not, it has actually been rather nice talking to you... Draco." She brushed herself off with her hands and pulled the remaining clips down out of her hair, shaking it out and combing through the ends with her fingers._

_He nodded and swallowed. "Same goes for you, Granger." He winked, feigning nonchalance in regards to leaving her here. He knew they would never be able to talk again like they had tonight with all walls down and no holds barred._

"_Goodnight," she murmured, turning on her heel and beginning her ascent up the stairs. Unable to force himself to speak, he merely watched in silence as she walked away from him, her dress billowing in her wake, her shoulders relaxed._

"_Goodnight... Hermione," he whispered, knowing she couldn't hear him. When she reached the top of the Grand Staircase, she turned to see him still standing at the foot, but he didn't feel foolish. Their eyes met for an endless moment. _Turn around, _said a voice in the back of Draco's head. _Turn around and go to bed. _However, a different voice, a voice that sounded considerably more trustworthy, told him not to. His mind knew which of the voices it was taking orders from and, before he even realized what was happening, he was calling out her name and his feet were carrying him quickly up the staircase toward her. Her gaze followed him, her feet moving in time with his, closing the gap between them, the expression on her heart-shaped face a mixture of confusion and mild amusement._

"_Missing me already?" she asked quietly, lifting and hand and letting it rest over her heart. Unable to stop himself any longer, he reached out toward her and held her hand in his, her skin feeling red-hot against his ice-cold. He pulled her by the hand into a niche beside one of the silver suits of armour, his eyes never leaving hers, and pushed her back up against the wall._

"_Try forgetting this first kiss," he murmured, then his lips were on hers, absorbing each other's body heat, moving gently in turn to accommodate their ever-shifting positions. They were like opposing poles at the ends of magnets, attracting and repelling just the perfect amount to maintain the harmony they had created. They had struck a balance. Positive and negative. Yin and yang. _Opposites attract, _thought Draco, as their mouths moves against each other. It was as though they were two connecting jigsaw puzzle pieces, made to fit flawlessly with one another. His strong hands were exactly the right size to hold Hermione's forearms to the wall, locking her in place. Hermione's soft jaw was the perfect shape for Draco's lips to caress it gently. Her hands tensed against his chest as they kissed, clutching fistfuls of his dress robes. At exactly the right moment she leaned her head back against the wall, allowing space for Draco to feather gentle kisses along her jaw and down her neck – after a minute or so, leaving him wondering whether or not Hermione had lied about her lack of kissing experience, she bent slightly and brought his mouth back up to hers. He felt her tongue dart across his bottom lip, her teeth nipping his skin lightly. He chuckled once. "I never thought I'd see the day," he murmured as he dropped a kiss beneath her earlobe. "Decent first kiss?" he enquired, smiling._

_She pouted, considering this, before she laughed out loud. "Does this answer your question?" she asked serenely," pulling his lips to hers once more._

Recalling the memory of the first time he kissed Hermione triggered a series of alarm bells in Draco's head. As though to emphasise his point, Astoria moaned quietly at that very moment, shuddering beneath his touch. Her hand found his neck and she began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt in the darkness. She only managed to unfasten two before Draco pulled away from her.

"I can't do this, Astoria," he told her, fixing the neck of his shirt once more and brushing himself off. Astoria stared at him, her eyes wide with rejection. Draco pushed his hands through his hair, feeling the thin sheen of sweat that now adorned his pale forehead. He knew his cheeks were flushed – blood boiled beneath his skin, and he felt as though every nerve ending in his body was a live wire, sensitive and dangerous.

"You weren't saying that earlier," she reminded him, her breathing having returned to normal again.

"I know," he said, straightening his tie. "But I'm saying it now."

Right on cue, the school bell rang directly outside the broom cupboard, signalling the end of the first double lesson. He picked up his bag and, feeling more guilty than he ever had in his life, pulled open the old wooden door. He crossed the threshold and looked back at Astoria, who remained just inside the doorway, her back against the wall. As he glanced at her, the strangest look crossed her harlequin green eyes, a look that feared rejection, a look that burnt with desire to know why what just happened had happened, a look that said, in a thousand different languages, _I'm going to get you, Draco Malfoy, if it's the last thing I do._

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**That's all for now folks! I apologise to all my readers that said they dislike the memory sections, but I thought this one was pretty adorable and kind of vital to understanding the story and how things happened at the beginning, so try to find it in your hearts to forgive me just this one! Now, question time: what did you think of the memory? How am I at writing kissing scenes, considering I've only ever been involved in one, which wasn't particularly enjoyable under the circumstances, in my fifteen-year-old lifetime? What do you think Astoria will do next? Was it good of Draco to end what was happening, or do you think he should have just carried on? LET ME KNOW! xxx**


	12. Shock

**Hey guys! Here's chapter 12! Thank you for your lovely reviews of chapter eleven – I did wonder how the long memory section would go down with my beautiful readers! No memories in this chapter, just a lot of teenage angst! A BIG BIG THANK YOU TO MY FRIEND MARSTON, WITHOUT WHICH THIS CHAPTER WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE.**

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Chapter Twelve – Shock:

During Hermione's first day back at Hogwarts, time seemed to pass in a most bizarre manner. Contrasting with her past experiences of the subject, History of Magic had come and gone extremely quickly – she assumed this was due to the fact that it was her first lesson of the school year, causing her to throw herself into taking extensive notes and absorbing Professor Binns' monotonous words with considerably more enthusiasm than she would normally. Resuming her magical education had already begun to serve as a great distraction from her entire current personal situation. However, as she, Harry and Ron made their way across the crisp, chilly grounds for Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, the short walk she had grown so familiar with over the years seemed to take a tremendously long time, and their surroundings looked larger, somehow, exaggerated – the air felt colder and more oppressive, the hills felt steeper and threatened the students with slipping, the September sunlight appeared brighter; it stung Hermione's eyes.

Herbology dragged past at an insufferably slow rate. Although her current disposition didn't prevent her from informing Professor Sprout of the properties and effects of moondew on evergreen plants – being bound and gagged in her old wooden seat wouldn't have stopped her from answering questions in lessons – she began to feel more and more pent-up as the lesson progressed. She refused to speak to Harry and Ron while they added the strange, sparkling dew to the various samples of puffapod leaves they were sharing, knowing that opening her mouth would only result in her spilling out her constrained aggression onto them, and arguing with her best friends was something she just couldn't handle at present. She couldn't afford to lose them too, not after losing the part of her life that had held her together.

After what seemed like hours, the Gryffindor students were returning to the castle for break, then, almost instantly, Hermione was sitting at the back of her Arithmancy class, listening to Professor Vector lecturing them on advanced numerological transmogrifications, then she was in the Great Hall spooning pasta onto her plate for lunch, then, what felt like seconds later, she found herself trudging down to the dungeons for Potions with Professor Snape. This last lesson, like Herbology, dragged on for a very long time. Snape wrote a recipe and ingredients list on the blackboard and commanded them to create an extra-strong form of Doxycide to aid Professor Sprout and the caretaker Mr Filch's recent endeavour to rid Greenhouse Four of a particularly nasty plague of Doxies, small fairy-like creatures with a particularly nasty tendency to bite anything that moved.

When lessons ended for the day and Hermione, Harry and Ron headed back upstairs to the common room, they had two essays and a fact file on the life and habits of Doxies to complete for homework – by the time they had finished, it had gone six pm., and the majority of their fellow Gryffindors were trickling downstairs to the Great Hall for dinner. On a typical September evening, many students would be outside at this time of the day, enjoying what little free time they had now term was in full swing, having already eaten dinner early. However, what had previously been a light rain shower had suddenly turned into a thunderous downpour outside the castle, so the majority of its students that were not in the Great Hall were loitering in the wide downstairs corridors and the Entrance Hall, sitting around in clumps, shooting sparks into the air with their wands, trying to impress their friends, and generally making a great deal of noise. When they walked into the Hall, they scanned the Gryffindor table and quickly found Ginny, sitting beside Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnegan and Luna Lovegood. Luna wasn't eating, but Ginny, Neville and Seamus had their plates stacked high.

"Where have you lot been?" asked Ginny, manfully swallowing down a mouthful of mashed potato.

"Finishing homework," said Hermione as she sat down, staring pointedly, disparagingly, at her red-haired friend.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'll do it later," she promised, picking up a carrot with her fork and eyeing it hungrily.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh, a proper, whole-hearted chortle. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed willingly – when her friends said something mildly witty, she had more and more recently found herself having to feign amusement, for the purpose of both not wanting them to think she was being rude and avoiding arguments. Now, however, the giggle came naturally, of its own accord. She managed several forkfuls of lasagne before the usual feeling of queasiness stopped her in her tracks – while the boys and Ginny tucked into rich treacle tart and black forest gateau, Hermione instinctively began breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting off the waves of nausea that were turning her stomach more and more frequently. She rested her head on the table and concentrated on the patterned floor, trying to force her stomach to settle once more.

Ginny finished eating rather quickly, pushing away her second helping of rhubarb crumble and custard after only two spoonfuls. "I've been defeated," she admitted, rubbing her flat stomach through her robes. "Come on Hermione," she said, standing up and stretching. "You're finished too, aren't you? These aren't going to be finished for a while." She gestured to the boys who were forcing down large helpings of lemon meringue pie. "I want to go and walk off some of this food. Come with me?" Ginny smiled serenely as Hermione nodded, and together they left the Great Hall and made their way into the wide Entrance Hall. The cavernous Hogwarts foyer was stifling, the air uncomfortably warm with both the magical heating charms the professors had set up for the cold months and the bodies of students moving around, sitting on the tiled floor, talking and laughing together. As the girls walked through the throng of people, two Ravenclaw boys to their right, presumably several years younger than them, conjured up a pair of miniature, semi-tangible dragons with their wands and, with a flick of each of their wrists, they began to breath small jets of multi-coloured fire at one another. The boys laughed, grinning and puffing out their chests impressively as Hermione and Ginny squeezed past them.

An empty patch of parquet floor, a space in the Entrance Hall free of people, opened up several feet in front of them. The girls quickly walked forward, only to see a gang of Slytherins step into the space, led by none other than the blonde-haired Draco Malfoy and the charismatic Theodore Nott, a pained expression on Draco's face, a charming grin on Theo's. Although Draco was facing in the wrong direction and appeared not to see Hermione, Theodore obviously did – he raised his hand as if to wave but changed his mind, lowering it again and offering her only a nod of his head. To Hermione's surprise, a flash of scarlet blossomed across his tanned cheeks as he gazed at her.

"Are you okay, 'Mione?" asked Ginny softly, nudging Hermione's arm, obviously aware that she had seen them. Hermione turned to Ginny almost instantly, pleasantly surprised at how genuinely _okay _she felt. She wasn't going to allow herself to be scared of Draco Malfoy. How many times over the years had his hurtful words forced her upstairs to her dormitory to face her traumatised emotions alone? How many hours over the summer holidays had she spent crying with his image etched into her mind, her tears dripping down onto that greyscale, magically moving photograph? She had cried until her face was red, wept until her head hurt and her skin prickled, shed so many tears that she didn't understand how they just kept coming. But right then, at that precise moment, as she watched Draco Malfoy standing before her, she knew she would have to be strong. She could, she had the ability. She was Hermione Granger – knowledgeable, brilliant, and above all, iron-willed. Anything she set her mind to, she could and would achieve. And right then, she vowed never to cry another tear over Draco Malfoy.

"I'm going to talk to him," Hermione said confidently, shaking her hair out and stepping forward.

"Hermione, if you don't think you're ready..."

"I am!" she found herself snapping at Ginny. She suddenly felt ridiculous for hiding away from him, for avoiding his stares in History of Magic that morning, for having spent the last seven weeks of her life believing that she would not be able to carry on without him being a part of her life. "I'm going to speak to him, and he's going to speak to me – I think I deserve that much!"

"His friends are all stood there, though..." moaned Ginny at her side, her hand finding the crook of Hermione's arm.

Hermione shook her off coldly, intensely irritated that her best friend was trying to stop her. "I don't give a damn about his friends!" She glared at Ginny. "He's going to talk to me whether he likes it or not! He owes me that much! He's going to-" But Hermione was interrupted by Ginny gasping at her side. Her brow furrowed and, although her brain told her not to, warned her she may not like what she saw, she followed Ginny's eyeline to see what had shocked her.

The slight, willowy figure of Astoria Greengrass had strode eagerly toward Draco, pulled him around to face her, wrapped her arms around his neck and crushed her lips to his. She tugged his silver-blonde hair with her fingernails, a smile evident on her lips as they kissed directly in front of everybody. They shifted their positions slightly, Astoria bending her neck to attack Draco's lips from a different angle – as they parted in the process of moving, the girl's tongue was visible, exploring Draco's lips and mouth. A few of the Slytherin boys stood around hooted and cheered Draco's name, shouting idiotic things at him as one of his hands moved to Astoria's waist, instinctively or not, Hermione had no idea. All Hermione knew was that, despite the internal promise she had just made, despite every positive thought that had just flitted through her mind, despite _everything, _she had to get out of there.

Astoria's mocking eyes opened in spite of the kiss, connecting with Hermione's, and, in that instant, Hermione knew that Astoria Greengrass was going to pay for this, one way or another.

"Hermione," Ginny began, touching her arm.

"No," Hermione told her, turning on the spot, her hands shaking with fury. "No way."

She strode away from the crowd of people and up the Grand Staircase, her teeth grinding together angrily. A cacophony rose in her wake, but she didn't turn round to see what was happening. It sounded as though some sort of fracas had broken out, but she couldn't force herself to care.

"Hermione..." yelled a voice from the bottom of the staircase, a painfully familiar voice. She shook her head, almost having to suppress a disbelieving laugh at his audacity. "Hermione, please," he went on. She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her.

"I never thought I'd see the day," she said, her voice bitingly sarcastic, repeating his own words from the night of their first kiss back to him. "Go back to that slut Greengrass, I expect she's waiting for you."

And with that she doubled the pace at which was climbing the stairs, praying that Draco would stop following her. Her face felt hot, and her whole body was shaking with anger. She wished her heartbeat would slow down – it was making her feel hideously nauseous again – but it didn't, not until she stopped her ascent of Hogwarts' staircases when she reached the second floor. She headed straight for the bathroom, her vision suddenly blurring. Coloured shapes blended into one another before her eyes, red spots appeared at the corners of her peripheral vision... she hurled herself into the first cubicle she reached, slid down onto her knees and violently threw up everything in her stomach.

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**That's all for now! I'll update soon, I promise! In the mean time, keep clicking that review button! What did you think of Hermione's changed positive attitude? Draco and Astoria's kiss? What do you think is Astoria's problem? LET ME KNOW! xxx**


	13. Threats

**Hey everyone! Lucky number thirteen is coming right up! I thought it might be kind of interesting to experiment with a different character's point of view in this chapter – love her or hate her, we're going to find out what Miss Greengrass has to say about what's going on. Does she really want Draco, or is the aspect of competing with Hermione for his attention the thing that's pulling her in? Well, without further ado...**

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Chapter Thirteen – Threats:

Astoria watched as Hermione Granger stalked away up the Grand Staircase and, as inappropriate as she knew it would be, she smirked, amused by the Mudblood's pitiable behaviour. She considered making some sort of sarcastic comment for comedic effect, but, at that precise moment, Draco turned, his face grief-stricken, and noticed the smile that was playing around her lips. His eyes narrowed heatedly.

"Bloody hell, Astoria," was all he mumbled bitterly in her direction before shaking his head and striding away behind Hermione, calling her name. Astoria continued to watch as the pair on the staircase exchanged a few brief, inaudible words, before Hermione turned her back on Draco and stormed away from him, leaving the blonde-haired boy staring after her, dumbstruck. Draco gazed around, looking extremely lost, before he shot Astoria a final pleading glance and retreated back down the staircase and through the crowd toward the Slytherin common room. It took Astoria a moment to realize that every Slytherin she was stood with was now gawking at her.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked sarcastically, staring into the faces of her classmates.

"I think you've crossed the line, pet," piped up Theodore Nott, addressing her with the same sickly-sweet nickname he gave to any mildly attractive girl he spoke to. Usually she considered it to be endearing, but tonight, it did nothing but grate on her nerves. He stepped forward so that he towered over Astoria.

"What 'line'?" she demanded, angrily making quotation marks in the air with her perfectly-manicured fingers. "Am I the only person who has realized that Draco and Granger aren't actually together anymore? He's to kiss whoever he wants..."

"Astoria, correct me if I'm wrong, but I really don't think he had much say in what just happened," Theodore said, circling her. "You know he isn't over her. _Everybody _knows that."

"He wasn't exactly saying no, was he?" objected Astoria, who could hear her voice getting more and more shrill as anger pulsed through her. The people stood nearby, including Theodore, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Dawn Stimpton and Adrian Pucey, looked around at each other, exchanging disbelieving glances. Astoria's mouth fell open. "I really don't care what any of you think," she told them cuttingly. "All's fair in love and war." And with that, she turned from them and strutted away up the Grand Staircase, trying not to reveal the fact too obviously that she had no idea where she was heading. _Anywhere but here_, she thought as she neared the top step. Without a single backward glance, she proceeded up the next flight of stairs and out of sight.

Just as Astoria was about to climb yet another flight of stairs to the third floor, something stopped her dead in her tracks – a sound was coming from nearby, a high-pitched, heartbroken wailing sound that reminded her of the awful romantic soap operas that her mother used to listen to as part of the Witching Hour, a weekly radio show that her family had beamed through the Wizarding Wireless Network to their old antique radio. The sound was rather quiet – it was evidently having to pass through several thick stone walls to reach her ears – resulting in the need for Astoria to hold her breath momentarily and cock her head to one side in order for her hear it properly. She set off along the second floor Charms corridor, having succumbed to her curiosity, listening intently for the source of the hideous bawling. She peered around doors into empty classrooms, checked broom cupboards – the sound was growing louder, so she knew that she must be nearby. As she reached the end of the Charms corridor - walking on tiptoe, for some bizarre reason - only one room was left that she hadn't checked. The heavy oak door to the girls' bathroom was ajar, and Astoria's lithe body slipped through the gap with ease.

She stepped inside, her eyes instantly falling on the four magnificent stained glass windows that covered the eastern wall of the bathroom. Each depicted the animal representation of one of the four Hogwarts houses – from left to right, moonlight shone through the translucent forms of a roaring golden lion, a curious-looking monochromatic badger, a blue raven in flight and a writhing green serpent. The windows cast coloured shapes on the dark marble floor which danced eerily in the rapidly falling darkness. She took another step and, abruptly very aware of the sobbing which had reached its loudest volume yet, her head flicked around, scanning every corner for whoever was crying. She knew who she hoped it was, knew what she would like to say to them if she was right, but whoever it was had evidently locked herself in the toilet cubicle at the end of the row. Astoria inched closer, stepping as lightly as possible, trying as hard as she could not to alert the girl of her presence. She breathed in once. Twice. Three times.

The broken sobs ceased, the girl let out a sigh and the cubicle door began to creak open. Hermione Granger now stood before her, streaks of mascara down her cheeks, her hair plastered to her scalp and the sides of her head. She had clearly been trying to regulate her breathing once more, but the sight of Astoria's wicked face stopped the process instantly.

"You," muttered Hermione, her face reddening. "What do you want?"

"Nice to see you too, Granger," lied Astoria pleasantly, grinning at Hermione. "That's an interesting new look," she commented, gesturing to Hermione's mangled hair and the stained front of her robes. "Going around looking like that definitely isn't going to help you win back our dear friend Draco, is it?" She smirked coldly. As she watched her, Hermione's hand moved to the inside of her robes. Astoria guessed that she had reached for her wand. _So that's how you want to play, _she thought, her eyes widening. Hermione stepped forward so that they were mere inches apart and pushed her shoulders back, feigning confidence. Her posture did not even compete with Astoria's – although Hermione was the taller of the two girls, Astoria exuded a constant aura of coolness and superiority, one which could make the most arrogant of Slytherin boys back down in an argument, one which had in the past been known to psych out the enemy before battle had even commenced. Even then, she never faltered, her heart rate never so much as quickened as she stood nose-to-nose with the girl who had cause to hate her more than any other.

"You are nothing... but a pathetic..." Hermione pulled her wand right out now and held it in front of Astoria's face. "... attention-seeking..." She brandished it mockingly, threateningly. "... little slut," she finished in a whisper, taking a step back but not once moving her eyes away from Astoria's.

Astoria laughed melodically and rolled her eyes. "Really?" she giggled, her tone more contemptuous than ever. Then, in a heartbeat, every trace of humour faded from her face and she stood dead opposite Hermione. "Is that what you think I am, Mudblood?" Her voice rang through the bathroom, reverberated around the lofty glass-panelled ceiling. She relaxed her tense shoulders, gave Hermione a final condescending glare and turned, stepping slowly away from her as though to leave the room. She heard Hermione release the breath she had been holding, saw her lower her wand out of the corner of her eye. Having sporadically decided on her next move, Astoria's hand gently slipped inside the front of her robes, her fingers closing around the dark strip of ebony that rested in her pocket slowly so as to not give anything away to the girl that stood behind her.

Astoria whipped around, holding her wand out and yelling, "_Stupefy!" _A flash of red erupted from the tip of her wand, and Hermione dodged it, although narrowly, by diving behind the door of the cubicle she had just left. Seconds later, her head reappeared. "_Stupefy!" _Astoria fired at her again, hitting her this time – Hermione was sent flying across the bathroom, where she landed hard on her back. Astoria walked over to her, smirking once more, not once lowering her wand. A scorned opponent was a deadly one and, although Hermione Granger was little more than an overly-sensitive, highly-strung Mudblood, she knew that she was top of the year in most of the subjects Hogwarts offered and was sure that she knew how to defend herself sufficiently.

"_Levi-" _Hermione began, but Astoria deflected the spell with a flick of her wand.

"What's the matter, Granger?" taunted Astoria, waving her wand maliciously over Hermione's body. "Is your huge brain finally failing you?" She laughed maniacally.

In this split second, Astoria had let her guard down – Hermione took aim and shrieked, "_Levicorpus!" _To Astoria's dismay, the spell pulled her own legs up into the air and held her there, upside down, as if tied to the ceiling by invisible, unbreakable bonds. The spell took effect instantly, knocking the wind out of her. Unfortunately for Hermione, Astoria had only recently revised this spell over the summer holidays and the counter-curse was fresh in her mind.

"_Liberacorpus," _she muttered, pointing her wand at her own feet and crashing, in a less-than-dignified way, back down to the floor. As Astoria pulled herself back to her feet, Hermione began to make a break for the door. "No way are you getting out that easily, Granger! _Incarcerous!" _Thick ropes sprung from Astoria's wand and hurled themselves in Hermione's direction but, from her sprawled position on the bathroom floor, she had aimed poorly – the ropes cleared Hermione's body by several feet. She sent the same hex across the room again, this time only missing her by inches.

"_Stupefy!" _Hermione turned around and fired, her curse hitting the floor near Astoria's feet. In her haste, Hermione had spun and lost her footing in a puddle on the tiles, which caused her to slip. During the seconds it took to steady herself, Astoria yelled, "_Expelliarmus!" _ A jet of red light streamed across the bathroom and Hermione's wand flew forward, out of her grasp, and into Astoria's waiting hand. She smiled, staring at Hermione and waving the two wands she held in her hands tauntingly. "Aw, look at that," she crooned. "It looks like the bookworm has fallen straight into the jaws of a snake." She sighed, brandishing her own wand in front of Hermione's face threateningly.

"The teachers will find out," said Hermione, her voice shaking. "If you do anything to me..."

"Oh no!" Astoria jumped up and down in mock horror. "Imagine what would happen if the _teachers _found out!" She stood still again, suppressing a laugh. "Oh, Granger, you are fun to play with." She cocked her head at Hermione, who stood, paralysed, several metres away from her, and held out her wand so that it was perfectly in line with Hermione's forehead. Her eyes shone with a combination of adrenaline, malevolence and pure loathing for the bushy haired girl that stood opposite her.

"Wait," said Hermione, her voice soft, almost pleading. She held up a quivering hand. "Astoria, please." Her eyes begged her to lower the wand, but Astoria felt no pang of sympathy – she was as high as a kite, riding, soaring on the slipstream of an emotion she had never felt before. Her heart was racing, and it made her feel more alive than ever. A sob escaped Hermione's chest - a pitiful, pathetic sound that made Astoria giggle uncontrollably. She wondered what other spells in her arsenal she could perform that would scare her the most. There were the Unforgivables, of course... but Astoria had never used any of them before. She couldn't stomach the thought of trying to curse Granger and having her laugh in her face when it failed to work. _You have to mean them, _said a voice in the back of her head. Professor Moody, one of their ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, had assured them of that much... Images of Hermione's ever-raised hand in classes flitted momentarily through her mind, images of a doe-eyed Draco Malfoy falling back through the portrait hole of an evening after a love-drunk afternoon with Hermione down by the lake... the sight of Hermione sitting in Draco's lap in the Slytherin common room, _their _common room that he had invited her into on many occasions... her fellow Slytherins, Nott and Zabini, falling under Granger's charismatic spell, laughing along with her jokes, grabbing their attention that would otherwise have been devoted to her and how fantastic _she _was...

"Ha..." Astoria sighed, allowing the mental images to saturate her mind and flicking her wand. "_Crucio." _Hermione fell onto her back, her torso undulating against the tiled floor. An agonized moan ripped through her lips. Astoria sat down with her legs crossed near Hermione's writhing body, her wand still pointed at her, and watched as the Mudblood's eyes rolled back into her head. Her fingers and toes curled underneath her and she shrieked, her slight form contorting and swelling, her limbs wrenching from side to side as though she was some sort of oversized ragdoll. Laughing once more, Astoria lifted the curse with a flourish of her wand. Hermione relaxed against the floor, face-down, trying to catch her breath.

"Wh..." Hermione started, but her ragged breath stopped her from continuing.

"What's the matter, Granger? Snake got your tongue?" Astoria rolled her eyes and lay down flat on her stomach so that her face was level with Hermione's. "Go on, what's the matter?"

"What..." she managed to force out. "... is your problem?" She sounded as though she may start crying again. Astoria couldn't help but giggle – during these last few minutes in the bathroom with Hermione Granger, she had laughed more than she had all day.

"Well, Granger," she started, raking a hand haphazardly through Hermione's tousled ash-brown hair. "Now that Draco is _mine, _and you realize that, if you try and do anything about it, or tell anybody about what happened here today, I will make your life a living hell..." She stood up, pulling Hermione with her by the arm. Hermione winced, still feeling the pain as the last effects of the Cruciatus curse wore off. "... I don't believe I have a problem." She smiled sweetly, before throwing Hermione's wand down onto the floor with a clatter, turning around and walking out of the bathroom.

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**She's a real psycho, Hermione's going to have to watch her back! So tell me what you thought! Did you like hearing about things from Astoria's POV? What did you think of the bathroom scene? Does anybody want to hear/see a little more from Theodore Nott? Keep pressing 'review', I know you all know where it is! Let me know! xxx**


	14. AUTHOR'S NOTE  PLEASE READ

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_

**Sorry to all of my truly wonderful readers who thought I had updated with a new chapter – as cheeky and teasing as it may be, this is a rather important message!**

**As you know, I uploaded **_**Chapter 13: Threats **_**last night, to very, VERY mixed reviews. Ugh, I can tell I'm going to upset some people here but I really am trying not to... As often as I tell everybody to review, review, review, and as open as I am to your constructive criticism, I hated waking up this morning to at least 3 or 4 reviews from readers saying that they absolutely hated chapter 13. STOP RIGHT THERE. NOW, I CAN TELL YOU'RE SITTING THERE ROLLING YOUR EYES AND THINKING, 'OH GOD, SHE CAN'T HANDLE CRITICISM.' I can assure you that this isn't the case, so please don't everybody comment and say that I have a problem accepting and learning from critique.**

_**However, there are 2 things that I do want from you beautiful people...**_

Ϟ **The first is that I would really love it if you could leave me a review saying what you would like to see happen over the next couple of chapters. What kind of relationships would you like the characters to develop? Which characters would you like to see a little more of? Are there any personalities that you feel need altering slightly? I realize that I made Hermione seem a little pathetic in the last chapter, but don't worry, I know what to do about that. Also, you may think that I let Astoria off lightly for her use of an Unforgivable curse - no need to fear, she will be getting her comeuppance soon! Please, PLEASE do this for me, as a favour. Every author needs to draw ideas from somewhere, and I would literally appreciate it more than words can describe if you fabulous Potterheads could inspire me!**

Ϟ **Secondly, and most importantly, **_**I am begging you to stick with this story. **_**Even if you absolutely despised chapter 13, which, sadly, I am aware some of you did, bear with me here! Things will be sorted out soon, with plenty of that Dramione romance you and I have been craving along the way! Please, please don't give up on me! I promise you, good things will come to those who wait.**

**Anyways, thanks for reading this author's note and I swear that I won't tease you any more – I promise the next thing I upload will be chapter 14! **

**I love you all, forever,**

**Megan, your scatterbrained author xoxo**


	15. Lucky

**Hey everybody! Like I said, no more teasing! Here's chapter fourteen, and we're back to Hermione's point of view. It's 1:16am, I've been taking caffeine tablets since lunch so I could stay up and write this for you – what would you do without me, eh? I'm just too nice. Anyway, let's crack on, shall we? Chapter fourteen, here we go...**

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Chapter Fourteen – Lucky:

As September faded into October, the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse. Icy rain and hail stones the size of the rosy apples Hagrid grew at the edge of the Forbidden Forest lashed against the stone walls and stained glass windows of Hogwarts castle, and the sultry, late-summer temperature of the previous month had dropped considerably, resulting in a lack of students roaming the school between lessons and meals – the chilly conditions meant the corridors were draughty and uninviting, and most of Hogwarts' pupils much preferred the cosy armchairs and warm log fires of their house common rooms. One miserable Monday morning, Hogwarts awoke to find a layer of frost had fallen on its grounds overnight and, during breakfast in the Great Hall, all of its students seemed to be discussing the same thing, the same infectious rumour that their Headmaster solemnly informed them was nothing but fact, over their usual piles of toast and goblets of warm pumpkin juice. The news that a student had been suspended indefinitely from school created an atmosphere in the gaping Hall that could have been sliced with a knife.

"I've never heard of a student getting _suspended_..."

"It was Astoria Greengrass, you know, Daphne's sister? She's a Slytherin..."

"I heard she used one of the Unforgiveable curses!"

"She can't have done, otherwise she'd be in Azkaban, she wouldn't just be suspended..."

Hermione had been given a blow-by-blow account of all the gossip and whisperings from the corridors by Harry, Ron and Ginny when they had visited her in the Hogwarts hospital wing the previous day. Although, of course, she had already been told the entire truth by Professor Dumbledore himself, she remembered to gasp and smile in all the right places and couldn't help but wonder whether or not her friends – and the rest of her classmates, for that matter - were going to realize how much of a coincidence it was that Hermione happened to be taken into the hospital wing with 'stress-related anxiety' at the exact same time as a student was suspended from school for making one of their classmates a victim of an Unforgivable Curse. Astoria's use of the Cruciatus Curse on Hermione, Madam Pomfrey had told her, had triggered a relentless flow of excruciating feelings and memories in Hermione's mind, an agonizing flashback of past experiences which had left her incapable of movement, a painful, emotional surge that could only be stopped with a week-long induced coma, a course of magical medication and plenty of mind-numbing bed rest, filled with books from the library to distract the brain in her head that was currently more troubled than ever. Although the effect Astoria's curse had had on her was not particularly rare, it was thought only to replicate itself in people such as Hermione that had recently suffered some kind of traumatic emotional setback – for example, the death of a family member, the loss of a friend... or the unwanted end of a romantic relationship. Madam Pomfrey had asked if any of these had played a part in Hermione's life over the last few months. Hermione had said no.

Professor Dumbledore had been at her bedside when she had awoken, dazed, groggy and heavy-lidded, from her induced unconsciousness. After briefly outlining how she had come to be in her current predicament, he had told her of Astoria's fate, not bothering to hold back for Hermione's sake with his opinions on the subject. The Slytherin girl had been caught leaving the girls' second-floor bathroom by Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff House, who had spotted traces of rubble on her robes, gasped at the sight of one of her top students lying motionless on the floor of the room she had just left and, immediately after magically transporting Hermione to the hospital wing, marched Astoria upstairs to the Headmaster's office. When Dumbledore had used _Prior Incantato _to discover what spell had last been cast with Astoria's wand, he and Professors McGonagall and Snape, both of whom were present at the time, had all been extremely shocked. An Unforgivable Curse hadn't been used in the school for as long as any of them could remember and, as uncomfortable as it made him and as reluctant he was to do it, Professor Dumbledore had no choice but to write to the Ministry of Magic, as well as Mr and Mrs Greengrass, regarding the scandalous behaviour of a Hogwarts student. He had known straight away that the indefinite suspension of Astoria Greengrass was in order and, for a moment, as he had watched representatives from the Ministry of Magic magically bind the young, tearful girl and force her inside a car with blacked-out windows, he had been sure that she, one of his own students, had been headed for Azkaban.

The next morning, however, Professor Dumbledore's judgement had been proven wrong in the form of a letter stamped with Rufus Scrimgeour's own personal melted wax seal. It appeared that Mr Ephraim Greengrass, Astoria's father and Personal Advisor to the Minister for Magic himself, had apologized _sincerely _for the entire incident and promised _earnestly _that nothing of its nature would ever happen again. Dumbledore, however, was far too sharp for the wool to be pulled over his eyes and, a week later, when he had read a short article in the _Daily Prophet _regarding the Ministry of Magic Library's new 'Greengrass Wing', complete with over twenty thousand original volumes and a golden plaque that read '_Lovingly donated to the Ministry of Magic by Ephraim Greengrass and family,' _he had realised that Astoria's relatively pain-free punishment had been the product of much more than just sincere apologies and earnest promises.

Right now, she sat on the edge of the bed that had recently become hers in the far corner of the hospital wing, her feet tapping out an impatient rhythm on the marble floor, her forehead wrinkled with irritation. Madam Pomfrey fussed around her, fluffing the pillows on her bed and insisting she lay back down – when Hermione merely glared at her, the Hogwarts matron gave her a withering look. _Lucky,_ Madam Pomfrey kept calling her. Lucky to have been found so quickly, lucky to be alive... right then, Hermione didn't feel so lucky.

"Miss Granger, I am fully aware of your intense desire to leave the hospital wing," said Madam Pomfrey, setting down a fresh glass of water on the bedside table. "But I think it would be best for you to stay for just one more night, as a precaution, you know, so that I can keep an eye on you..."

"I'm sorry, Madam Pomfrey, but I'm more than two weeks behind on my school work as it is. Besides, there isn't any need for me to be here anymore anyway. I could have left a week ago, really. I haven't felt the urge to cry hysterically since last Wednesday, and the nightmares have almost completely stopped. I promise I'll be fine," she assured her, standing up and grinning as heartily as she could manage. Random, irrepressible emotional outbursts had been a side-effect of her condition, one which she was sure Madam Pomfrey didn't particularly enjoy having to deal with.

Madam Pomfrey stared at her, her eyebrows raised, before a smile began threatening the corners of her thin mouth. "Go on then," she finally relented. "But you're to take one more dose of Pepper-Up Potion before you leave, Miss Granger, or I'll have Professor Dumbledore after me!" she added gruffly as Hermione turned to leave with her holdall that had been packed with her things for the last half hour. Hermione sighed and sat down once more as Madam Pomfrey rushed away to one of her many supply cupboards to get the Pepper-Up Potion.

When Hermione was finally allowed to leave the hospital wing, she headed straight upstairs to Gryffindor Tower and threw her things down onto her bed, lying down beside them, appreciating how warm and crisp her own bed felt. After spending fifteen days locked in the draughty, cavernous hospital wing surrounded by the sharp, bitter smell of disinfectant and the constant sounds of Madam Pomfrey clinking glass bottles and huffing exasperatedly, Hermione lay on her bed in her dormitory for fifteen minutes, her eyes closed, simply soaking up the environment she adored and had grown so used to over the last five years. When a little while had passed, she rolled over onto her side and saw a tottering pile of folders and parchment balanced precariously on her bedside table that she immediately recognized as the homework she was supposed to catch up on. Her eyebrows pulled together as she began counting the days since the bathroom incident, trying to work out what day it must be. Having drawn a total blank, she gazed out of the window and watched as the lightly falling sleet turned into a hail storm before her eyes.

"Oh, Hermione, there you are!" She turned to see Lavender Brown, a freckle-faced, bow-wearing girl that always seemed to remind Hermione of an oversized cartoon character, poking her head around their dormitory door and stepping inside. "How are you feeling? Any better?"

"Er, much better, thank you, Lavender," she said, forcing a smile. "I know this is a strange question, but what day is it today?"

"It's Friday, all day." Lavender grinned, looking very much like some sort of child's ragdoll. Hermione nodded thoughtfully, trying to conceal how glad she was of this news – what with the amount of work she had to crack on with, she knew she would need all the time the weekend could offer to finish everything before lessons recommenced on Monday. "Anyway, the reason I came to find you was that there's an owl downstairs waiting at the window. The letter's addressed to you."

Hermione's eyes widened. Who on earth could be writing to her via owl? She briefly wondered whether or not the Ministry of Magic would need to speak to her, ask her questions about the incident in the bathroom with Astoria. Hermione shuddered at the memory. In hindsight, she felt slightly embarrassed that she had been physically unable to fight back. She had proven herself as a fighter, a worthy opponent in battle before, but, looking back to that evening in the second-floor girls' bathroom, she had felt unbearably fragile and too emotionally drained to retaliate to the best of her ability, disconcerted by the sight of Astoria's arrogant face, the sound of her self-confident, melodic voice...

"Really?" she heard herself say to Lavender. "I wonder what that's all about." She stood up and followed Lavender downstairs to the Gryffindor common room, surprisingly empty for an October afternoon. As she moved to the window to retrieve her letter from the weather-beaten tawny owl, she spotted the faint shapes of people, seven of them, soaring through the air several hundred feet away from Gryffindor Tower on broomsticks. _Quidditch practice, _she realized, pulling open the window and, despite only being exposed for several seconds as she untied the letter from the owl's leg, getting the front of her robes soaked in the process. Her name – just her first name, she noticed - was written in black ink in a looped, flowing cursive that she recognized instantly. Her heart skipping a beat, she unfolded the piece of parchment and read the words on the page.

_I know what Astoria did to you. We need to talk._

_- Draco_

**Well, there you have it! Hopefully this chapter will go down a little bit better than chapter thirteen did! Leave me review, you know you want to! Let me know my work hasn't been wasted ;) So tell me, what did you think of Hermione's stint in the hospital wing? Her short but potentially sweet letter from Draco? Where do you think it will lead? Any predictions? Looking forward to seeing some of that Dramione romance we've all been craving? Well, tune in for more soon, and KEEP PRESSING REVIEW! xxx**


	16. Rivalry

**Hey guys! Sorry it's been a long time – it's quite a short chapter, but I hope you like it! It may be a couple of days until I can update again. I start school again tomorrow, boo hoo Ah well. Tell me what you think, leave me some love!**

Chapter Fifteen – Rivalry:

It was two days before Halloween and, in the same manner as it did every evening, night had fallen very abruptly about an hour or so before dinner had even started. The torches and fires around the castle had been lit though necessity a lot earlier than they had in September, and the corridors seemed impossibly vast as well as draughtier than ever – only several days earlier, having finally taken note of the students' muttered complaints and decided to act upon them, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick could have been seen casting warming enchantments all around the school, adorning the thick stone walls and high ceilings with invisible insulation in an attempt to protect everybody inside from the biting chill that evidently came hand in hand with the onset of winter.

Having been in correspondence with Hermione through the medium of several blunt notes, heartbreakingly so when compared with the amorous letters he had grown so used to exchanging with her, Draco paced up and down the Slytherin common room as he waited for her to arrive. Although he had suggested meeting elsewhere – he considered it a better idea to meet somewhere other than either of their residential quarters, somewhere that was neutral ground, somewhere that wouldn't be filled with students who would undoubtedly make attempts to get involved and defend their house's side like it was some sort of Quidditch match – Hermione had been adamant that their reunion took place in Draco's house common room. In spite of knowing that she wouldn't want them to potentially thrash out their issues in front of her fellow Gryffindors, particularly Potter and Weasley, he wondered idly if part of the reason she wished to meet in his common room was that it was the perfect excuse to see and speak to the Slytherins she had befriended during their relationship. He had been very surprised, at the time, at how well she had gotten along with the majority of them (Pansy Parkinson, he had feared, would never be converted to enjoy Hermione's presence among them) and how a choice few, particularly his best friend Theodore Nott, had developed a fondness of her that he was certain had not changed when the couple broke up.

"Calm down, mate," said the Slytherin in question from the round wooden table next to where he was pacing. "You're making me nervous."

"What time is it?" Draco asked, waving off his best friend's comments that he hadn't heard anyway.

Theodore sighed. "Five to seven."

Having been fighting with his superfluous nerves for the last hour or so, ever since they had returned from dinner, the news of how quickly time had passed hit Draco like an Impediment Jinx. He stopped dead in his tracks and perched on the edge of the chair opposite Theodore, his legs having turned to what felt like some sort of jelly, and felt his heart race. As he tried to be still, he felt his pulse, strong and steady, almost causing his body to shake. He stared at the floor, not seeing anything, and he shivered – a draught had whispered through the common room and his skin seemed to have become hypersensitive.

"Oi, are you alright?" asked Theodore. "Draco?" he prompted after several moments when he received no reply.

Draco exhaled slowly and dragged his gaze away from the floor. "What do you think made her do it?" he asked quietly, staring over Theodore's shoulder. "Astoria, I mean," he added, noticing his friend's bewildered expression.

"Oh." He nodded, his dark eyebrows pulling together. "Well, I reckon it's fairly obvious, mate," said Theodore, holding onto the table and leaning back so that his chair was balancing on two legs.

Draco raised his eyebrows and rested his elbows on the table. "What, you think..." He glanced around and lowered his voice. "You think she likes me?"

Theodore snorted with laughter. "No way," he assured him, shaking his head, his almost ever-present smile fading. "Its competition, isn't it?" he went on, his voice dropping to a murmur. He stared at Draco as though he was missing something that was in plain sight. "Maybe Astoria's a little into you, but that isn't why she's pursuing this. You know Hermione. She beats everybody at everything. You know Hermione – 'the brightest witch of her age' and all that," he explained, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. "It probably didn't help that she's a Gryffindor. Astoria loves competition, and I reckon she saw Hermione as a rival. When she realised she was never going to have the brains, she decided she wanted the other major thing in her life, and that, I believe, was you." He smiled smugly, satisfied with the explanation he had provided.

When Draco had received the owl from his father informing him of Astoria's behaviour toward Hermione and her punishment, the word 'shocked' could not have summed up his feelings precisely enough. That evening in the Entrance Hall, he had not appreciated Astoria throwing herself at him in front of everybody – he hadn't wanted her to approach him, not at all, but when she had initiated the kiss from out of the blue, the moment caught him and knocked the breath from his lungs. After a few brief moments, he had felt her smiling against his lips, laughing once, and, when he pulled away to see the source of her amusement, his eyes had been drawn to a distressed-looking Hermione sweeping away from them up the stairs. In spite of his guilt, he had followed her and, after a harsh exchange of words, had permitted her to turn her back and walk away from him. He had felt guilty, distraught and, above all, _responsible. _He had let her leave, he had released her, he had allowed her to turn and walk straight into Astoria's cruel clutches. _It's my fault, _he had thought as he read and re-read the letter from his father over and over again. _I should have been there to stop her. I should have been there to protect her._

"So you think she did it because of a twisted _rivalry _she invented?" asked Draco, his eyes narrowed, sitting back in his seat.

"I can't think of another reason why she would," Theodore pondered, raking a hand through his spiky black hair. "I mean, look at you, she couldn't possibly find you attractive..." he added, winking, amused by his own sarcastic comment.

Draco, however, didn't laugh. "So Astoria thinks that what she did to Hermione was acceptable, does she? Does she think it was like a level of some sick game?"

"Well, there was no lasting damage, mate, it could have been much worse..." Theodore mused, letting all four legs of his chair rest on the parquet floor again.

Draco's mouth fell open – Theodore had touched a nerve. "_Could have been much worse_?" he repeated disbelievingly, his eyes wide, his eyebrows pulling together. "Theo, she tortured my girlfriend!" He threw his hands up before continuing to stare at the floor.

"Ex-girlfriend, mate," Theodore corrected him quietly, pressing his lips together.

"What?" Draco demanded angrily without looking at him.

"You said girlfriend." He paused, cocking his head. "She's your ex-girlfriend."

"That's what I meant," Draco assured him heatedly, feeling ridiculous having to explain himself to Theodore. His face felt hot and his hands were shaking once more as he turned around and headed toward the portrait hole. With no idea of his destination, he approached the blank back of the painting that covered the entrance to the Slytherin residential quarters and raised a pale hand to push on it but, before he could, large black calligraphic letters formed before his eyes, blossoming across the greying canvas:

'**Hermione Granger of Gryffindor**

_**requests permission to see**_

**Draco Malfoy of Slytherin'**

He inhaled sharply, realizing that he had made no attempt to prepare himself for this moment. Draco had no idea what he would say, or even how he would greet her – this would be the first time they had properly spoken since that fateful day on the platform. It was a strange thing how simple words and muttered apologies could have such a momentous effect on the relationship between two people. A confession of love could change enemies into something considerably more, while several harsh words and a few tears could transform a pair of lovers into nothing but strangers, strangers who previously exchanged romantic gestures, but now, shared only cold, stolen glances and bittersweet memories that they had locked away and hidden deep in their minds. He wondered if he and Hermione had become the latter.

Refusing to put it off any longer, he pulled back the portrait to reveal Hermione, her eyes widening as they faced each other. Her tousled brunette hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and she wore a pair of light blue jeans and a grey cable-knit sweater. The only make-up she wore was mascara, as always, and her cheeks were the exact shade of cherry-blossom-pink that Draco had commented on many times before, an adoring smile on his face.

"Hermione..." he began, taking in the beauty he had forced himself to ignore since they had been reunited in September. And before he could continue with whatever he was going to say, Hermione had stepped forward and into his willing arms. He held her close and, for a moment, Draco Malfoy felt himself fighting tears.

**That's all for now! Keep pressing review! xxx**


	17. Confessions

**Hey guys! Here's chapter 16! I really seriously hope you like this one – here comes some of that Dramione romance we've all been craving for a while! I hope you don't think it's too cheesy, haha. Remember to let me know what you think!**

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Chapter Sixteen – Confessions:

As soon as Hermione had exchanged a brief greeting with Theodore Nott in the Slytherin common room (she didn't attempt to embrace him or anything of the sort – the last thing she wanted was for Draco to believe that the only reason she had wanted to meet him here was so she could socialize with his friends), she followed Draco in silence down a familiar series of shadowy passageways in the direction of the boys' dormitories. A few people passed them on the way, some of which she recognized. Draco muttered 'hello's to two older-looking boys as they brushed past in the opposite direction, both of whom stared at Hermione with curious yet unfriendly expressions on their hard faces. She tried, with great difficulty, not to flinch. After what felt like an eternity of following gloomy passageways, made longer only by the atmosphere between them that could have been sliced with a knife, they emerged into a small, marble-floored room whose ceiling was made entirely of transparent double-glass – she gasped as silently as she could as she noticed a school of Grindylows drift by lazily up above through the steely green mass that was the undoubtedly the Black Lake. It struck her at this point that she had never actually been inside Draco's bedroom at any point during their relationship. There had been times during their eighteen months together, Hermione mused, that she had been sure she would be invited back here at some point, but to her surprise, she had found Draco to be somewhat of a traditionalist – he had never pushed her unspoken boundaries, had never done anything that made her feel insecure, had always assured her that he was happy with taking things at whatever pace she felt most comfortable with. Although she considered this to be honourable, she had at first wondered what motivated him to make this promise. If anything was to happen, they could easily attribute it to their youth and carefree attitudes. They were young and free, in any case, and she knew Draco could be a 'typical teenage boy' with the best of them, but since the start of their relationship, he had been nothing but a gentleman. It made Hermione blush to admit it but, although a part of her internally commended him for this, another part had found it infuriating. They wouldn't be young forever, after all – what could possibly be so wrong with just one careless night together, a night where they could forget the world and everybody in it apart from each other, fuelled with teenage passion and perhaps a little Firewhisky? Of course, she had never voiced this opinion to Draco. Hell, she knew she could barely voice it to herself without breaking down into a fit of embarrassed giggles. She was Hermione Granger; she wasn't supposed to feel anything like this, and saying it would have made it real.

The click of Draco's dormitory door opening drew Hermione out of her reverie and back into the real world. She lingered outside for a moment, taking in the view of his room from the doorway. Despite the Slytherin residential quarters' location deep under the ground, wide magical windows had been enchanted to allow the muted October evening sunlight to filter through, identical to those that hung around the walls of the Ministry of Magic, over two hundred miles away in the middle of London. Four magnificent four-poster beds, all hung with elegant green and silver drapes, stood at three-metre intervals around the large room; although three of them were unmade with trunks roughly rammed underneath and clothing strewn across them – _boys, _Hermione thought, rolling her eyes – the bed nearest to where she stood was pristinely tidy, giving off the distinct air that nobody had slept in it for a while. Unable to contain her curiosity, she stepped in and looked down at it, a frown adorning her heart-shaped face.

"Who slept here?" she asked quietly, touching the silky emerald-green bedspread.

"Marcus Flint," Draco told her instantly, his head snapping around to face her. "He left. His parents wanted him to, er, join them in what they were doing, you know, now he's almost of age..." He rumpled his hair awkwardly. "And I guess he went along with it." He stared out of the window wistfully. Hermione guessed that he was vaguely reminiscing about memories with Flint from their years at Hogwarts together – as far as she was aware, Draco had drifted apart from Flint over the past year, forming part of the reason he had been one of the few of Draco's friends Hermione had never been properly introduced to. Although Hermione hated stereotyping the students of any of the Hogwarts houses, Marcus Flint had become the latest of the ever-growing number of Slytherin students to be pulled from school by relatives for reasons nobody liked to discuss. _Voldemort is recruiting teenagers now, _she thought to herself in disgust. _He really doesn't care who dies for his cause. _

Draco sat down on the bed nearest to the wide window and indicated that Hermione should sit down beside him. He sighed heavily as she did so. Hermione kicked off her ballet pumps and crossed her legs, turning to face him. They gazed at each other for a moment.

"Draco -" Hermione began, in an attempt to break the ear-splitting silence, at the exact same time as the white-blonde boy said her name. She chuckled once, but Draco's mouth remained set in a hard line.

"Draco," she began again, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand. She knew what she wanted to say but, now she _could _say it, now he was here to listen, she couldn't find the appropriate words.

"I know what you're going to say," he told her slightly sheepishly, "and it's my fault entirely."

Hermione was taken aback. "What's your fault entirely?"

"You don't have to pretend not to know what I'm talking about," he said cuttingly, his gaze snapping away from her face and toward the window. "It was my fault." When Hermione continued to stare blankly at him, he exhaled sharply, impatiently. "Astoria! What she did to you in the girls' bathroom! It was all my fault!" He turned his torso around and held his head in his hands, staring at the floor. "I should have come after you! I should have known she'd try something!"

"How on earth would you have known that?" she asked, her eyes narrowed. "How on earth –?"

"I'm not stupid, Hermione! I should have known what she was up to from the start..." He broke off, throwing his head back and looking up at the ceiling.

"From the start?" Hermione repeated, confused. "The start of what?"

Draco looked at her for a moment before he spoke. "As pathetic as it sounds, it really isn't what you think. Astoria Greengrass is nothing to me. That evening after dinner... I didn't know what she was doing. You know she only kissed me because you were there, don't you?" he implored her, staring at her hands as they folded in her lap. "That's typical Astoria. She always wants what she can't have."

Hermione didn't speak for a few seconds, taking in what he just told her. She frowned. "So... there's nothing going on between you and her?"

"Nothing whatsoever. Or..." His voice trailed off to silence.

"Or what?" she whispered, subconsciously leaning toward him.

"Or anyone else, for that matter," he snapped. "There hasn't been anybody. But, from what I've heard, that isn't what you told your friend Weasley." He scowled, his jaw clenched, his hands forming fists by his sides.

She felt the colour rising in her cheeks as she remembered that morning in the Great Hall when Ginny had stormed ferociously toward the Slytherin table, Hermione in tow, and thrown her angry accusations at Draco like daggers, accusations that had been fed to her directly by Hermione that had no truth in them whatsoever. "I'm sorry," she quietly. "That was very wrong of me. I should never have told Ginny that. Not without knowing the truth."

"I won't lie, I think I was more surprised than angry," said Draco, mimicking Hermione's actions from earlier – he kicked off his shoes and crossed his legs on the bedspread so they were facing each other. "Very out-of-character for you, I thought."

"I suppose..." She cast around for the right words. "I suppose I wanted something, well, _someone_... to blame. I didn't want to think that... what happened... happened because of something I did. I didn't want to believe it." Draco's brow furrowed, his head cocked to the side as he listened. "I thought that, if I convinced myself there was a reason... somebody else... I thought it would take the edge off the pain... stop it hurting. I thought I would stop thinking it was my fault. I started to believe my own lie. During the holidays... I completely shut down." She didn't know why she was telling him this, of all people. After almost four months of bottling up her emotions and feelings, four months of piling the pressure on, four months of keeping everything inside, it was just a relief to let everything out. "I told myself over and over that you had chosen _her _over me, and that's why it happened... there was somebody else, that was all, it wasn't something that I had done, it couldn't have been helped, there was nothing I could have done..." She shook her head. "I was stupid."

Draco gazed intently into her face and laughed once. "No sane person would ever choose Astoria Greengrass over you." Hermione blinked slowly and looked down to see that her hand was resting on Draco's knee, palm up. She inhaled sharply and went to move it away, but his fingers formed a manacle around her wrist, holding it in place. "I can't believe what she did to you," he said, shaking his head slowly. "She should have gone to Azkaban, she would have deserved it. I wish..." He stared at their joined hands, and a streak of colour flashed across his cheeks. He cleared his throat. "She could rot there for all I care. It was my fault. I should have come after you. I could have –" His voice cracked, and he sniffed. "I could have stopped it happening."

"Don't be ridiculous," she sighed, gazing up at him.

"Well, how are you feeling?" he murmured, his grey eyes filled with concern. "You were in the hospital wing for a long time. I came to visit as much as I could, but Madam Pomfrey said that you were in an induced coma." He cleared his throat thickly again. "I was terrified," he muttered, looking out the window.

"A lot better," she said, smiling as warmly as she could. "I know how much worse it could have been."

"That's what Theodore said!" Draco said angrily, dropping her hand and standing up. "It doesn't matter! What she did to you was terrible on principle! Hermione, she tortured you! You know, I honestly think I'm the only person who can see how awful that is." He took two paces and rested his forehead against the glass of the window, closing his eyes.

"It's been... well, it's been a difficult couple of weeks," Hermione admitted, suddenly feeling brave and standing up. The sunlight shone in her eyes – she reached out and placed a hand timidly on Draco's shoulder. "But life goes on, doesn't it?"

"No, Hermione." He turned on the spot, too fast for Hermione to withdraw her hand – instead, it came to rest lightly on the front of his robes, over his heart. "Life doesn't just _go on._" They stood completely still, so still that she felt his pulse race beneath his skin. For a moment neither of them spoke – the only sound that filled the room was that of their shallow breathing and the faint lap of lake water against the roof above them. "We're living proof of that, aren't we?" he asked softly, closing his eyes.

Hermione dropped her hand back down to her side and took another small step forward – without causing Draco to open his eyes once, she held her breath and let her fingertips trace his high cheekbones. "What are we doing, Malfoy?" she wondered aloud, unfastening the buttons of his cloak. He shrugged, letting it fall to the floor, and kicked it across the floor to the side of the room.

"We're balancing on a knife edge, Granger," he told her, his eyes still closed, the corners of his mouth twitching. "And sooner or later we're going to fall off, one side or the other." His lavender eyelids fluttered open and his grey eyes stared pensively into hers. Without looking away, Hermione noticed him roll up the sleeves of his white Oxford shirt out of the corner of her eye. She felt his fingers interlace with hers and she looked down instinctively. She noticed that their hands locked together perfectly like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle – the spaces between his long fingers were exactly the right size for hers to fit between them comfortably. She noticed how warm his hands felt as they held hers, his left thumb massaging circles into the skin of her right hand. The very first thing she noticed, however, was neither of these things.

"What..." She turned his wrist over gently so that his left forearm was facing up and gasped in horror as she saw the black shape that was burnt into his alabaster flesh. Her hand shaking, she traced the snake tattoo with her fingertips. "Draco..."

"Now you know why," he said coldly, pushing her hand away from his Dark Mark. He rolled his sleeves back down, shivering slightly, and held her face in his hands. She could feel traitorous tears stinging her eyes. "I can't deny who I am, Hermione," he murmured, shaking his head. "And..." He swallowed hard, almost as though he too was choking back tears. Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he pushed her down so that she sat on his bed, her legs hanging over the edge, and dropped to his knees on the marble floor in front of her. Hermione's heart was racing, and their breath was coming in perfect time. Their hands locked together once more, their faces inches apart. "You... I... I need you to accept me," he choked out. Hermione had never seen him struggle for words like this before. " I... I can't stand losing you, Hermione. Please. I need you."

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**Well, that's all for now folks! What did you think? Any predictions for what's going to happen next? It's 12:16am right now, so convince me via the review button that I didn't stay up and publish for you for nothing! Let me know, KEEP PRESSING THAT LITTLE REVIEW BUTTON! xx**


	18. Selfish

**Hey guys! I really am sorry how long this has taken! Being back at school has really taken up every bit of my time, and I've been writing whenever I've had a spare moment! Just so you know, there will only be a couple more chapters after this. I think I know where I want to end the story, and it looks like it's coming soon. But don't worry, my next Dramione tale is already in the works, so look out for it soon! Anyway, without further ado, the longest chapter yet, here's chapter seventeen... enjoy!**

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Chapter Seventeen - Selfish:

It's a strange thing, the way in which one meeting, a single, long-awaited encounter, can change a person's feelings entirely, set their mind in a different way, manipulate their emotions to feel something they have been forced to suppress for too long a time. Subjects that someone has made a conscious effort to force their mind to avoid, trivial actions and passing glances which have had to be wistfully ignored, even familiar aromas laced with bittersweet memories that they have attempted to forget the significance of – everything is jerked back into the present, thrown into startling relief, suddenly revealing how little has actually changed and how much has mercifully remained very much the same.

When Hermione had left him the previous night with nothing but the lingering scent of her perfume on his robes and a heartfelt promise to join him for breakfast the following morning to 'talk things over', Draco had sat down on his bed and basked in the fact that the dark tattoo on his left forearm had stopped prickling for the first time in several months. It was as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and his usually troubled, restless brain was able to, at long last, relax – he had pulled off his robes, put his head to the pillow and, wishing a silent 'goodnight' in Hermione's direction, whatever direction that was, he had drifted off to sleep with her image in his mind's eye. Although he slept dreamlessly, Hermione was the first thing he thought of when the deafening rain began beating against his window and he became fully coherent early on Thursday morning. His dormitory was deserted – Blaise and Theodore's beds were empty, their school robes missing from their nightstands – so he decided to take a hot shower before heading down to meet Hermione in the Great Hall. When he re-entered the bedroom with his damp silver-blonde hair on end and a Dartmouth green towel around his waist, he caught sight of something on the window ledge, tucked just out of sight behind the pistachio curtains. A photograph, he discovered, as he clasped his shaking fingers around it and examined it closely. His stomach fluttered. The little black-and-white versions of Hermione and himself he held in his hand smiled warmly at the camera. Under closer inspection, Draco summarised that this photo had been taken at the Yule Ball in their fifth year – after the success of the Triwizard Tournament's traditional Christmas revelry, Hogwarts had decided to make the celebration a regular fixture in the school's annual calendar.

Miniature Draco, clothed in simplistic black dress robes with an emerald green lining, stood just behind Hermione, wearing a black, floor-length gown that hugged her slight frame, his hands on her waist, his eyes directly on the camera. As he watched, his photographic self bent his neck down and buried his face intimately in Hermione's chocolate brown tresses – in response, the latter turned her head, her grin widening, and met his lips with her own, continuing to smile as they kissed. A second later – almost as though someone, the photographer, possibly, had pointedly cleared their throat – both of their heads snapped in the direction of the camera once more, their faces glowing with the traces of embarrassed laughter. Something caught in Draco's throat as he admired the photograph. He set it down on his nightstand and found that his eyes kept flicking back to it as he dressed in his school robes, his fifth-year self smirking patronizingly at him as though he had forgotten to do something extremely obvious. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror and worked his hair into its usual carefully casual state of disarray before smoothing down his robes and stroking the seemingly permanent dark circles beneath his eyes with his fingertips. He screwed up his face and raised his eyebrows, hoping that the shadows were merely a trick of the light but, to his dismay, no matter what angle he turned his face toward, they remained present. Having realized that perfection was not going to be achieved this particular morning and releasing a heavy sigh, Draco slung his black satchel over his shoulder and, after showering himself with one more spritz of his signature aftershave than usual, proceeded out of the dormitory and through the maze of passageways that led him out of the Slytherin residential quarters.

He felt his pulse hammering in his neck as he made his way across the Entrance Hall. His stomach was in knots and, suddenly feeling as though his previous attempts at taming his silver-blonde locks had been excessive and made him appear as though he was trying too hard, he raked his hands through his hair and pushed it back at the sides, hoping he had achieved a careless, just-rolled-out-of-bed look without the aid of a mirror. Exhaling sharply, he focused his mind on the task at hand. _You're being ridiculous, _he inwardly chastised himself. _It's just Hermione. _But the thought of her name, the act of mentally uttering the word, brought to light images that it was certainly not wise to think of just then... her face that day on the platform, her expression and the cautious, almost fearing way in which she had caressed his Dark Mark the previous night, the greyscale photograph of the pair of them at the peak of their romance...

It was undeniable – Hermione Granger had Draco Malfoy under her spell. It could have been said for almost two years now. Before Hermione, it made Draco inwardly cringe to admit that he had never really considered girls to be _people, _but mere objects created to serve the men of the world in whatever manner they pleased. He assumed this mindset had been the product of watching his parents' relationship as it twisted, turned and matured over the years. They, themselves, had married at the young age of seventeen, when they had come of age in the wizarding world, and had only met on two occasions before their fateful wedding day. Lucius and Narcissa's marriage had never been one of love, but one of blood purity, wealth and social standing. _The way it should always be_, his father had told him several times before. Their family tree had been untainted by non-wizarding blood for as long as living memory served – the Malfoys pure-bloodedness could be traced back to the medieval age, something that his parents, particularly Lucius, had always been extremely proud of. When he had determinedly introduced his father to Hermione, he had greeted her with a false, condescending smile that told Draco his new girlfriend, his first proper love, had been deemed merely acceptable for now, an adequate body and pair of lips for him to practice on, _a common slut, _he had heard Lucius telling Narcissa one evening, _ready, willing and more than able to teach him the tricks of the trade_, but by no means appropriate to carry the ancient Malfoy bloodline.

Hermione had gotten under his skin and, at the start, it hadn't been a feeling he'd liked. After their first kiss in the Entrance Hall, Draco had locked himself in his dormitory and shut out the world, knowing the implications of what he had foolishly done, angrily considering what on earth had compelled him to act how he had. _I kissed the Mudblood. _The thought had stung his mind repeatedly. He knew he would have to make an effort to forget the entire incident, wave off any comments or questions about his whereabouts immediately after the Yule Ball, ignore Granger should she seek him out, her mind set on answers. Until term commenced again in January, it had not been problematic to avoid Hermione – he remained in the common room whenever it was possible, devoting his time to completing homework and working on the Quidditch tactics he had been expected to cook up in his new position as the youngest Quidditch Captain that Slytherin had ever seen. There were several occasions on which he required information that would only be found in the library but, knowing Hermione's mannerisms as well as he had come to over the years, he knew that venturing into Madam Pince's domain would result in an awkward meeting with Granger that he was not nearly prepared for. He didn't know what he could possibly say to her to explain his actions on Christmas Eve. _She kissed you, _he half-heartedly tried to convince himself. _She threw herself at you and you just took advantage, like any normal teenage boy would have done. You're no different from the rest of them._

When term began, Draco decided that his best bet would be to just return to hating Hermione Granger as he had before the events after the Yule Ball. At first, he thought it was working. Other than the occasional questioning glare he received (and ignored) from her between classes and across the Great Hall at mealtimes, their relationship had not changed at all. That was at first. But before long, Draco began to notice his feelings toward Hermione fluctuating from day to day. Little things, little, insignificant personality traits of Hermione's that used to wholly bother him – the way she resolutely raised her hand to answer every question before it had even finished being asked in lessons, the snobbish manner in which she turned her nose up at his fellow Slytherins, her severe brown eyes, the way her forehead wrinkled when she poured thoughtfully over her work, how she chewed the end of her quill when faced with a particularly difficult Potions equation – stopped being so irksome. He started seeing them as comical peculiarities, then, before he knew it, they had become endearing, appealing quirks. He found himself glancing over at her in lessons more and more, subconsciously, most of the time, and she began to feature in his daydreams as well as his involuntary night-time hallucinations. Occasionally, when he was thoughtlessly watching her in class, she would catch his eye and he would quickly glance down at the floor or, when he was feeling more bold, he would throw her a 'don't flatter yourself' kind of look. The second she focused her attention back on her work, however, his gaze would fall back on her face and he would feel himself sigh like a pathetic, lovesick fool. Draco Malfoy was infatuated, and he knew that, before long, he would be in way too deep.

He hadn't been wrong.

Now, trying as hard as he could to push aside the sense of foreboding that was playing on his mind, Draco pushed open the heavy wooden door and strode into the Great Hall. It seemed as though the enchanted windows in the Slytherin dungeon had been suffering a magical malfunction – bright October sunshine streamed in through the charmed ceiling above, casting an assortment of blinding shapes across the magnificent parquet floor. The atmosphere in the Hall was one of cheer and excitement. After a moment of confusion, he remembered that Halloween was tomorrow and, as always, Hogwarts was sure to make it one that nobody would forget. Rumours had been circulating that there was to be a surprise Halloween Ball the following evening, a festivity that would only be confirmed in the morning during breakfast by Professor Dumbledore himself. Considering this, Draco realized that, if all went to plan with Hermione this morning, perhaps she would consider being his date, his partner for the first time since their break-up. He felt himself smiling, but stopped himself – none of the students had the slightest idea whether or not the Ball would actually take place and, even if it did, Hermione had made no promises to continue their relationship, to pick up where they had left off, to accept Draco in this new light that she had been forced to see him in. What was more, Draco had soon realized after their conversation the previous night, he had unknowingly _lied _to her about his bizarre, unspeakable affiliation with Astoria Greengrass, the girl who had tortured Hermione in a fit of jealous rage.

Thinking of Astoria for the first time in several weeks, picturing her face contorted into its usual beatific smirk in his mind, made his heart beat wildly and his insides squirm and twist into uncomfortable knots once more. _Astoria Malfoy, _a small, unwelcome voice murmured somewhere in the back of his head. He gulped. The idea of marrying Astoria, particularly after what she did to Hermione, made Draco feel sick, sick to the pit of his stomach. He would turn sixteen the following June and, a year later, one meagre, stupid year, he and Astoria would become of age, leave Hogwarts and undoubtedly begin their new, pre-arranged lives together as fully-matured members of the wizarding community. He knew how the story would unfold. Draco would gain a position somewhere high up in the Ministry of Magic with ease, an unwarranted product of his family ties and social status, while Astoria would remain at the Manor with Narcissa and raise the pure-blooded, blonde-haired, green-eyed, inhumanly beautiful children they would be expected to produce in as little time as possible. The very thought irked him as he walked the length of the Slytherin table toward where a familiar tousle-headed brunette sat, quite alone, watching a pair of wood pigeons as they swooped past the window opposite her. _Hermione Malfoy, _he considered, clearing his throat to alert her of his presence. She glanced up, drinking him in, and smiled, a natural, breathtaking smile that knocked the wind out of him. Before he even realized what he was doing, he was smiling back. _Yes. Hermione Malfoy. _He sat down opposite her. _Much better._

"Good morning," he greeted her pleasantly, reaching for a piece of toast out of force of habit more than hunger – his stomach was already churning nervously, and he didn't feel like running the risk of making it any worse.

"Hello stranger," she said, a smile still playing around her lips.

Was it terrible that, even now, despite how long he had needed and craved this meeting, he could still hear Astoria's melodic voice chiming those exact words more than a month ago?

Hermione leaned her head forward and, as she did, a dark curtain of her hair fell from its position over her shoulder and in front of her face – reflexively, Draco raised a hand and pushed it back to where it had been. It was an idle, subconscious action that felt as natural and easy as breathing. He sighed, almost contentedly, but Hermione's sharp intake of breath told him that something was amiss. Following her eyeline and glancing down, he saw that his traitorous shirt sleeve had been hitched back with his movement, revealing the bottom-most edge of the dark tattoo that adorned his inner forearm.

"Does that hurt?" she asked timidly, her voice strained.

He nodded weakly. "I'm used to it now."

"When did you get it?" She gestured gently to his arm. "The actual Mark, I mean." There was no incredulity in her voice, no anger, not even fear, merely curiosity. This behaviour, this tone, this clear thirst for knowledge, was so typical of Hermione that he almost laughed. She was always willing to ask the most sensitive of questions if they were required to learn something she had set her heart on.

"At the start of last year," he told her, pulling down his shirt sleeve once more. "My parents sent an owl to school, informing them that I needed to go home for a couple of days. 'Urgent family matters', they said."

Hermione nodded slowly, her eyes burnished and piercing. Her gaze lingered for a moment on his left arm before gradually trailing upwards, following the contours of his body. When her eyes fell on his neck, his mouth, he bent his head slightly, coaxing them upwards and onto his own. Her jaw fell slack and an unmistakable sob tore through her calm, nonchalant façade.

"Hermione," he said, lowering his voice, his tone pleading. "It's something I was born into. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later."

"But why?" she asked, resting her chin thoughtfully on her hand. "Why didn't you tell me? Why... didn't you trust me?" Her eyes shone with the glistening ghosts of tears.

"Of course I did," he assured her intently, his left hand inching towards hers on the table. "I do," he amended, slipping his fingers between hers, locking them together. As soon as they touched, Draco's blood burned in his veins, and an inimitable, almost tangible surge of electricity flowed between them. Every nerve ending in his body had become a live wire. His face felt hot, he could feel the colour rising in his cheeks, and Hermione chuckled once. It was an amiable sound, one that he had missed deeply during their months of separation. He felt himself laugh hard too, though he wasn't sure why. _Damn it, Hermione, _he found himself thinking. _I'm losing my mind because of you._

"I'd understand if you hated me," he said, frowning once more. "Of course."

"Draco." She shook her head disparagingly, like a parent chastising their small child. "Did you take any notice whatsoever of what I said to you on the platform that day you broke up with me?"

His eyes widened as he attempted to think back, but as he stared into Hermione's heart-shaped face, he found his brain to be incapable of rational thought. "Which part?" he murmured, raising his eyebrows.

"The part where I said that I have _never _thought you weren't good enough for me," she reminded him, her fingers tightening around his own. "If anything," she went on. "I told myself over and over how much better than me you could have done. Why has he settled for me, when he could have one of those gorgeous, pure-blooded Slytherin goddesses that he shares a common room with?" Hermione laughed, amused by her own long-since-passed thought processes. "I couldn't believe that someone like you would even look at someone like me."

"You really don't see yourself very clearly, Granger," he promised her. "I can assure you, between you and _anybody else _in my house... well, there's no comparison whatsoever."

"But what you said that day..." she mused, her eyes drifting over his shoulder as she reminisced. "You said that you were leaving me for my own good. What's made you think differently now?" Her tone wasn't accusing. She wasn't demanding the motive behind his sudden disregard for her safety. She just wanted the truth.

"Hermione," he began, a wistful smiling threatening the corners of his mouth. "When I broke up with you, it was because I knew you'd never want to be a part of _this _life." He gestured to his left arm and toyed with the sleeve with his fingers. "Why would you? Why would you pick the finished-second-place Death-Eating Slytherin when you could have your happy-go-lucky Gryffindor knight in shining armour, Ronald Weaslebee?" He laughed flatly at his comparison. "I did what I did with nothing but your safety in mind. I convinced myself that it was for the best, that everything would be okay in the long run, that you would move on and thank me for it later. But I was wrong. Hermione..." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "This summer, I prayed that you were okay, that things were getting better for you. Merlin, I wondered when they'd start getting better for _me. _They didn't. _They just didn't. _I thought when we came back to school it would be alright, that the pressure of lessons and Quidditch would be a distraction." He broke off, his eyes clouding over as he basked in the bitter memories of those summer months.

"I thought that too," she admitted.

"I realized that things weren't going to change. Nothing was getting better and... well, it took me a while to admit that I couldn't get over you. And the truth is, Hermione, I'm a bloody selfish bastard." He laughed blackly.

"What on earth do you mean?" she asked, frowning.

"Isn't it obvious, Miss Know-It-All?" he asked, smiling. "If I wasn't selfish, I would have just smiled through the pain and let you carry on with your life. But I can't do it anymore. I told you last night. I can't live without you." He shrugged, hoping his answer would be satisfactory to her.

Hermione didn't speak for a moment. Instead, she sighed and tilted her head backward, enabling her to stare out of the window above them. Draco followed her lead – the bright sunlight stung his eyes, and he squinted. A parliament of owls flew over the Great Hall, and a loud 'hoot' nearby heralded the arrival of the post. When no letters or packages dropped down to the table for either of them, they both looked down at one another once more.

"I..." they both began at the same time. They laughed. Hermione's head snapped up. Fast footfalls behind Draco signalled that someone had approached them.

"Hermione!" Theodore exclaimed, throwing himself down beside them and grinning. "How are you, doll?"

"Hey Theo," she mumbled, smiling. "Good, thanks. Really, really good. You?"

"Not bad! Draco, mate, you could have told me that you two were back on! Good for you!" Theodore clapped Draco on the back and smiled at them both. "Wait." He paused, frowning. "You _are _back on, aren't you?" he muttered awkwardly in Draco's ear, suddenly blushing scarlet. Draco didn't speak – he exchanged a glance with Hermione before turning to answer Theodore.

Before he could, however, Hermione spoke up. "Yes, Theo," she assured him, suddenly standing up from the bench and grinning. "I'm not sure why our Draco didn't tell you." She motioned that he should stand up, and he obliged, trying to hide his confusion from his best friend.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said Theodore happily, remaining on the bench and pulling a plate of scrambled eggs toward him. "See you guys later."

To Draco's intense pleasure and surprise, Hermione picked up his hand as they walked along either side of the Slytherin table and they stretched their arms over the seated students' heads, refusing to relinquish their grasp upon each other. When they reached the end of the table and the heavy wooden doors, Draco pulled her close and tucked a strand of chocolate brown hair behind her ear.

"Hermione, what was that about?" he asked, trying to conceal his smile from her.

"Everything you just told me only confirmed what I was already thinking," she said, grinning up at him. "I honestly don't care how 'selfish' you think you're being. You said you can't live without me, and the truth is I can't live without you either. You're part of me, Draco Malfoy, whether you like it or not, and that's the way it's going to have to be. What you said earlier was wonderful but, really..." She sighed happily and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Oh, Draco. You had me at 'good morning'."

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**So? How was it? What did you make of the longest instalment yet? Favourite part? Which bit did you hate? I'm begging you, yes, YOU, I'm talking directly to YOU, little reader, PLEASE press the review button and just tell me what you thought! It doesn't have to be long, just a few words telling me your opinion – anyone who has written a story like this before will agree with me when I say reviews are what us authors absolutely thrive upon! LET ME KNOW xxx**


	19. Reunion

**Hey guys! Yet again, I'm sorry about how long it's been! School, homework, yada yada yada... I've had everything on! But, at long last here it is. The chapter after this one is probably going to be the last, so don't be too shocked when the end comes! Also, I had to bring back a certain bitch in this, so please keep an open mind and tell me what you think! I was checking out the stats for this story earlier – oh em gee, so many thousands of hits! I couldn't believe it! Thank you all!**

**Secondly, I'm about to do a shameless publicity plug – I know how much y'all love Dramione, so here's a story by another author that really isn't getting the recognition it deserves: [**.net/s/7397063/1/] **Seriously, read it. It is absolutely brilliant.**

**Anyway, onwards and upwards, chapter eighteen...**

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Chapter Eighteen – Reunion:

Try as she might, Hermione could not now, nor could she ever, give a title to, categorize or even begin to _explain _her love for Draco Malfoy. To this day, she had never been able to isolate the precise turning point in their relationship, the moment in which her hate for him had been replaced by the passionate, incessant feelings that she felt for him now. What had started off as a peculiar sensation of curiosity had rapidly evolved, first, into an unexplainable obsession, then a fervent infatuation, and, finally, an irrevocable love that neither of them could ever have predicted. When had it happened? She tried desperately to remember. Had the defining moment been the first time she noticed him staring at her in class with something other than burning hatred in his stormy grey eyes? Or maybe when she had found out that she and him were the only two students in their year group with the ability to truthfully say they had read _Hogwarts: a History _from cover to cover? Had Draco's first ever use of Hermione's first name that night of the Yule Ball decided it for her? Or had it been love when the pair had finally succumbed to their feelings and he had uttered those words that Hermione had replayed a million times on loops in her head – _"Come on, Granger. Give me a chance. I promise I'll show you a good time. Trust me." _And then he winked, and Hermione had been sold.

Physically unable to keep the smile from her face, Hermione rolled onto her bed in Gryffindor Tower and hugged her knees, her fingers slipping around the white-gold locket Draco had gently clasped around her neck the previous evening. After spending the entire day together apart from during lesson time (Hermione had had free periods in the morning and the afternoon, her only class of the day being Arithmancy with Professor Vector immediately before lunch, which she had been present in, while Draco had decided that attending an entire day of timetabled lessons was not, under the circumstances, a valuable use of his time), walking around every room, hallway and corridor Hogwarts had to offer, lounging about in the grounds and just generally enjoying each other's company, Hermione had been reluctant to part from Draco when the sixth years' curfew came into action at ten pm. Regardless of her disinclination to bid him goodnight, Hermione had always respected the school's rules and refused point-blank to stay up and risk getting caught out of bed in the middle of the night, so, prior to parting outside the Gryffindor portrait hole with a chaste but lingering kiss, Draco had promised to come and meet her in the morning and walk her down to the Great Hall for breakfast. He had pulled out the delicate piece of white-gold from the pocket of his dark blue jeans, fastened it around Hermione's throat and, with that, he had gone.

There had been an air of merriment among the students on Halloween morning when Hermione and Draco had arrived in the Hall, hand in hand – she had felt the colour rise in her cheeks and an embarrassed grin adorn her face as they moved between the house tables and Draco's Slytherin friends, excluding a haughty-looking Pansy Parkinson, had clapped and cheered in appreciation. Despite the evident symptoms of her shyness, Hermione couldn't help but feel glad that she wasn't the only person delighted to see her in such close proximity with their comrade once more. As she sat down beside Draco, their fingers interlaced on the surface of the table, and threw herself into a conversation with him, Blaise, Theodore and a hilarious, straight-talking brunette named Tracey Davis, she exhaled contentedly and realised that, for the first time in months, she felt _right _again. The gaping void in her chest, the painfully empty hole Draco had left when he had ripped out Hermione's heart had entirely healed and then some, and she felt happy, complete, _alive_ once more. While they talked, she found herself able to laugh wholeheartedly, to smile with satisfaction. She had survived. She had had made it through the storm, and she could breathe again.

When everybody had assembled in the Great Hall, Professor Dumbledore had taken his place at the golden lectern in front of the staff table and stated that there would, indeed, be a ball that evening in celebration of Halloween, one of Hogwarts' favourite festivities. While a small number of girls, namely, Hermione noticed, Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, left the Hall shortly after Dumbledore's announcement to prepare their wardrobe selections for the Halloween Ball ("How could they only spring this on us this morning?" she heard Lavender gush as she pulled Parvati through the heavy oak doors. "Things like ball gowns take time to sort out, you know!"), Hermione had settled back in her seat and smiled at the thought of attending the Ball on Draco's arm.

"Fantastic," Tracey had muttered sarcastically, playing absently with a strand of her long, poker-straight hair. "Now I've got to find a date." She rotated on the bench as if to leave.

"Well, you won't have to wait long," came a determined-sounding murmur from Draco's right hand side. Theodore Nott lay flat on the bench and rolled off it before ducking out from under the other side of the table. The others had watched him, amused and mystified expressions on their faces. Theodore got up onto one knee and took Tracey's hand in both of his. "Tracey Natasha Davis," he began, clearing his throat and rumpling his spiky black hair. "Will you grant me the honour of escorting you to the Halloween Ball?" Although a charming smile spread across his face, a glimmer of long-awaited desperation shone in his dark green eyes.

Tracey had rubbed her chin theatrically, considering him, a smile threatening the corners of her mouth, before shuffling off her seat and onto his raised knee. "I thought you'd never ask," she told him, her hand moving to the back of his head, her fingers knotting in his hair. Then they had kissed, and Hermione, Draco, Blaise and even Pansy had laughed and congratulated them on finally making official something that had been in the works since they were eleven years old.

"Who are you planning on asking, then, Draco?" a slightly pink Tracey had said when she and Theodore had finally pulled away from each other, gazing humorously at Hermione.

"I've got my eye on someone," he had told her, grinning, his arm snaking around Hermione's waist and pulling her close.

Now here she was, pulling on and zipping up the dress she had borrowed from Tracey that had never been worn and, as her friend had promised, was sure to grab the attention of everybody as she entered the Great Hall. _If they're not all looking at me already, _she internally amended, an almost smug grin on her face. _I'm going to the Ball with Draco Malfoy. If he doesn't turn heads, I don't know what will. _The gown's many layers of amaranth chiffon brushed gently against the floor as she walked across her dormitory to the mirror, in front of which she spun around and admired not only her dress but the stunning up-do Ginny had manipulated Hermione's chocolate brown locks into several hours ago that was still perfectly intact. Her hair was back and off her heart-shaped face in a high, messy, carefully casual ponytail, and the shorter layers toward the front were plaited delicately and clipped to the sides. A single, graceful pin curl hung in front of each ear, both of which were adorned with the simple, elegant, two-carat diamond earrings that Draco had bought for her fifteenth birthday last year. She had not worn them since last year's Yule Ball – although, during the holidays, several occasions such as her parents' wedding anniversary dinner and her cousin's twenty-first birthday has arisen upon which she _could _have worn them, what with the state of their relationship, Hermione hadn't thought it was appropriate, and had instead locked them away in her jewellery box and tried to forget about them.

"Hermione!" squealed Parvati and Lavender, approaching her from behind. Parvati's dark hair stood out dramatically against the short cream dress she wore, while Lavender's dishwater blonde complimented her sweeping candy floss-pink gown as though the colours had been made to be worn together. "You look gorgeous," Parvati complimented her, examining Hermione's pink-red dress with approval evident on her elfin face. Lavender, with whom Hermione had always had a bittersweet, love-hate relationship, 'mmm'd in agreement.

"All credit to Tracey," Hermione laughed. "Your dresses are beautiful!"

"Tracey?" Lavender glanced up, shamelessly waving off Hermione's compliment.

"Tracey Davis," Hermione clarified, raising her eyebrows.

"From Slytherin?" Lavender enquired sweetly, smiling up at Hermione from under her thick black eyelashes. "I didn't know you were friends with, ahem." She cleared her throat pointedly, sarcastically. "That crowd," she finished.

Hermione fought extremely hard not to rise to and ignore Lavender's jibe. This comment was absolutely typical of her fellow Gryffindor and Ron's ex-girlfriend – Lavender Brown was always digging up dirt, looking for gossip, always listening for ammunition; secrets, lies, _anything _that could help her potentially plot the social demise of anybody that dared to cross her. She had admitted herself that Slytherin house would have suited her better than Gryffindor. Lavender could be diabolically lethal when she wanted to be and, as little as Hermione could honestly say she liked her, she didn't want the next trashy Hogwarts story sold to Rita Skeeter to be one regarding her. She had been there and done that, and didn't want to go back.

"They're just mates," she supplied flatly, making it very clear in her voice that the conversation was over. Lavender and Parvati stared awkwardly from each other to the ground as Hermione gave her reflection a final once-over before leaving the dormitory.

Hermione and Draco had planned to meet in the Entrance Hall at 8:30pm in plenty of time for the Ball's official opening at 9. But, by a happy coincidence, as Hermione made her way along the left-hand passage that led to the staircase down to the Entrance Hall, Draco was strolling toward her along the right. Looking extremely dapper in sleek black dress robes with amaranth lining (a certain Tracey Davis had obviously briefed him in their common room as to what colour Hermione planned to wear), he grinned as he caught sight of her, his mouth dropping open slightly, and stood up extremely straight, holding one hand behind his back and turning his nose up, feigning haughty snobbishness for her amusement. Hermione laughed out loud and subconsciously picked up the pace of her walk, her eyes meeting his and henceforth refusing to wander elsewhere.

They met in the middle of the passageway at the top of the staircase. Draco moved his hands tenderly to her waist and Hermione raised her arms to wrap them around his neck. Before she could, however, Draco had released her once more and was pulling something out from inside his robes. When his hand emerged once more, he held a gleaming, silver band adorned with three voluptuous cream lilies. As soon as he revealed the corsage, the aroma filled Hermione's nostrils and her mind was flooded with memories of sitting by the lake with Draco last spring.

_Draco plucked a beautiful cream lily from the Black Lake's bank and leant back to rest beside Hermione once more. The flower was perfectly formed, its petals flawlessly even and heart-shaped, all fading from a dark ivory in the centre to a pale alabaster toward the edges. He held it gently up to her face – instinctively, she tilted her head forward toward his hand. The lily smelled impossibly sweet and saccharine and, for a moment, Hermione never wanted to move again._

"_Beautiful," Hermione murmured, inhaling one last time._

_Draco withdrew his hand momentarily, breathing in the wonderfully intoxicating scent himself, before he leaned forward and tucked it behind Hermione's ear. "Absolutely beautiful," he agreed, staring piercingly into Hermione's eyes._

_She wasn't sure whether or not he was still talking about the lily._

"Corsage, my lady?" he offered, putting on a snooty, aristocratic accent.

"Why, thank you, sir," Hermione played along, giggling, holding out her hand. Draco fastened the corsage delicately around her wrist before offering her his arm. She took it elegantly, and together they turned and walking slowly down the staircase. Couples and individuals were already milling around the Entrance Hall into which they were descending – even from the top of the stairs, Hermione immediately spotted Ginny's flowing red hair beside Lee Jordan's dark brown. Ginny glanced up at Hermione and smiled before nudging Lee; the pair of them turned and waved in Hermione and Draco's direction. Harry and Ron, accompanied by a grinning Cho Chang and a determined-looking Marietta Edgecombe, stood to Ginny and Lee's left – they also waved. She waved back, but Draco's eyes were elsewhere.

Both of their gazes fell on Theodore, Tracey, Blaise and Pansy who were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at them, their faces full of laughter and excitement. Theodore and Blaise, like Draco, both wore dress robes of suave, simple black. Pansy's dress, in full reflection of the loyalty she held for her house, was short, tight and emerald green, while Tracey's was a stunning shade of shining ultramarine – it cinched inward at her tiny waist before billowing outward in hundreds of satin layers.

"Draco! Hermione!" the latter exclaimed. Hermione stepped forward to speak with them, but Draco merely waved serenely and pulled her away toward the main castle entrance. In light of the number of bodies pressed into the relatively small Entrance Hall, somebody had propped open the heavy wooden doors to allow some of the chilly October evening air passage. Draco released his grip on Hermione's arm and instead held her hand in his as they stared out of the open doors and across the grounds. Hermione's eyelids fluttered close as a breath of cool air played across their faces. She heard footsteps very close to her and barely had time to reopen her eyes – before she knew it, Draco had advanced on her and her back was against the wall of the wide, empty side-chamber off just off the Entrance Hall.

Draco was kissing her deeply, more deeply than ever before – rather than silently asking permission as he usually did, he was forcing entry, and Hermione liked it. She leaned up onto her tiptoes and felt him smirk against her mouth before parting his lips once more and allowing the heat to flow properly between them. The electricity was almost tangible. He was dominating the kiss, and Hermione knew she was putty in his hands. When he moved, Hermione readjusted her own position to fit his. She groaned softly, leaning her head back, and felt Draco trail light kisses down the side of her neck. His teeth grazed ever so slightly over the sensitive spot at her throat and he nipped gently at the skin – Hermione gasped, her fingers tangling in his hair, forcing him closer to her. He kissed her lips softly once more, but this kiss was too light, too chaste for her liking now.

"No..." she murmured, pulling his mouth back to hers. She inhaled sharply, savouring the peppermint-smoke-and-aftershave scent that she had missed so much. There was no way she could pull back now. She was in way too deep. Draco was everything; he was like air, and Hermione was suffocating. She felt him push her wrists back against the wall, securing her in place. To her surprise but not entirely her displeasure, he began toying with the zip at her side, teasing it, tugging it slowly down. Was this what she thought it was? Eighteen months, a tragic break up and a heart-wrenching reunion later, was _it _really going to happen? She heard footsteps, but Draco didn't pull away. His lithe body was everywhere - Hermione couldn't bring herself to open her eyes.

"He's a good kisser, isn't he?" said a sickly-sweet, musical voice from somewhere over Draco's head. "It's a shame he's wasting his talent on you. Yours truly was a fairly decent match for his expertise, didn't you think, Draco?"

Draco straightened up and whipped around, flinging an arm protectively around Hermione's shoulders. As he moved to her side, the figure of a slight, pixie-like girl with striking green eyes and short, dark hair stepped toward them, a malicious smirk on her face. Neither Hermione nor Draco responded – they merely stared at her disbelievingly.

"What's the matter, Granger?" asked Astoria sweetly, cocking her head in false concern. "Did he tell you the truth?"

"What truth?" Hermione bit out, gritting her teeth.

Astoria glanced at both of them, before feigning shock. "What? Our Draco didn't tell you?" Astoria's smirk was firmly back in place as she rounded on them, striding forward quickly, her face close to Hermione's. She raised her left hand so it was directly in Hermione's eyeline – she flexed her second finger where a sparkling diamond set in white-gold glittered.

"You need to learn to keep your dirty Mudblood hands off my things, Granger," she spat. "We're engaged. Has your know-it-all brain thought up a solution for that one?"

/

**I WILL PERSONALLY COME AND KILL YOU IF YOU DO NOT REVIEW. I was ill today and didn't go to school, so I have written this for you on my death bed (also known as my sofa). I will love you forever if you review, so please press the button! What did you think of Astoria's return? PRESS REVIEW. I cannot say it enough times. Review review review! xxxxxxxx**


	20. The Beginning

**Hey everyone! SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN FOREVER. Well, here it is – THE FINAL CHAPTER (: I won't waste any more time here, just make sure you enjoy it!**

Chapter Nineteen – The Beginning:

The world and everything in it had fallen into slow motion. Draco's heart raced and sent shivers of electricity across the surface of his skin as he glanced from Hermione to Astoria and back to Hermione again. Her eyes were wide with shock and glistening, and her jaw had fallen slack in disbelief. Draco reached out for her hand but, whether by coincidence or not, he wasn't sure, Hermione turned her body right at that moment, coldly denying him access. Astoria lowered her hand and turner her head to face him. She opened her mouth and began to speak, but Draco cut straight across her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked through gritted teeth, his voice low and deadly.

"Did you think my 'indefinite suspension' would never end, Draco?" she crooned, making quotation marks in the air with her dainty, perfectly manicured fingers. "I'm here to take back what's rightfully mine. You knew you had this coming sooner or later."

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, jabbing a finger in the direction of Astoria's left hand. He had instantly recognized the engagement ring she wore as his mother's – an exquisite piece of goblin craftsmanship, the two-carat diamond set into delicate lattice-patterned white-gold cast gleaming, multi-faceted outlines and shapes on the stone ceiling.

"I popped round to the Manor earlier," Astoria explained in her sickly-sweet voice, holding out her hand to admire the ring. "Narcissa and Lucius thought it a wonderful idea for me to start wearing it now. How long is it until our wedding, Draco?" she mused. "Two years? A year and a half?"

"Draco..." Hermione mumbled at his side. He looked up at her – she was trembling from head to toe, her hand hovered near her mouth and she appeared to be chewing on her fingernails. Her breathing was ragged, and she was looking away from him. "Why... I don't... why is she saying that, Draco? What does she mean?" she asked, her voice so small that it was almost inaudible. She turned her head toward him and, the second his stormy grey eyes locked with her chocolate brown, he pulled her into his arms where she rested her head against his chest, her breathing coming fast and uneven against the bare skin of his neck. Even while she was folded into his embrace, her movements seemed strained, unwilling. Draco sighed in a mixture of anger, frustration and overwhelming love for Hermione.

"Hermione," he began, holding her shoulders and gently turning her to face him. She stared at the floor, her body still shaking. "My parents have arranged for Astoria and I to... to..." He couldn't bring himself to say it, could not force the words to form on his tongue. "You're pathetic, Greengrass," Draco hissed, staring down his nose at Astoria. He released Hermione and stepped closer to her, his tall, lithe frame causing him to tower over her. "Do you know how much I would enjoy hexing you into the next century for what you did to her? For your own sake, I wouldn't give me any more reason to than you already have by coming here."

"Coming here?" Astoria glared incredulously at Draco. "I apologize for going to _school _here, Draco. What, did you think that I would never come back? Did you think that you and your little Mudblood girlfriend would be able to live happily ever after and that no one would mind?" She laughed raucously. "Hilarious."

"That isn't hilarious," Draco said, stepping forward again so that he and Astoria were mere inches apart. "What's hilarious is the fact that you think this 'wedding' is genuinely going ahead. Whatever it takes, I'm not letting it happen."

"So she isn't lying?" Hermione bit out from behind him, her jaw grinding audibly, anxiously. "Draco, you don't want to marry her..." She gazed slowly around the cavernous side chamber like a girl with no idea who she was or what she was doing. Draco had never seen her look so vulnerable. All he wanted to do was draw her close again, plant a loving kiss on her forehead and promise that everything was going to be okay, but he could not find the words.

"I'm sorry, love," he murmured sincerely, retreating back toward her, lifting her hand gingerly and kissing her knuckles. "I should have told you as soon as I found out."

But Hermione did not appear to be listening. While her eyes remained fixed on the floor, her hand found its way to the heavy, hanging folds of her dress and she pulled out her wand. She clasped it tightly, efficiently, between her fingers, and looked up at the ceiling. The pink hue of her face was deepening and, for a moment, Draco thought she was radiating heat. Her eyes locked onto Astoria's. The animosity between the two girls was almost tangible. An echoing, endless silence filled the room, interrupted only by the high, amused snigger that ripped through Astoria's cool, calm and collected façade. And before he knew it, Hermione had bared down upon her, forcing Astoria's back against the wall and holding her wand threateningly to her throat. Her hand locked around the Slytherin's wrist and her face was contorted with both rage and pain – she seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into restraining herself from breaking it.

"You think everybody is so scared of you, Greengrass," hissed Hermione, her face so close to Astoria's that she must have been able to feel her breath on her skin. She was so angry that she trembled as she held Astoria in place. "That day in the bathroom, you know full well that I wasn't able to defend myself properly." She released her hold on Astoria and stepped backward from her, her wand still raised, her shoulders pushed back. "I'm sure I can now."

Draco leapt to Hermione's side as Astoria hastily whipped out her own wand.

"He obviously doesn't think so," screeched Astoria, nodding her head frantically in Draco's direction. He pulled out his own wand and stood back to back with Hermione. Despite their slightly strange positioning in relation to one another, their wands still both pointed in her direction. _Use your right hand, Draco, _his father had always chastised him since the first time he held a wand, plucking the strip of wood from between his son's fingers and placing it in his opposite hand. This had always felt awkward and unnatural, and Draco had always switched back to his left hand with a smirk as soon as his father turned away. "He's kept a lot from you, Granger, but you can't see it. You still seem to be labouring under the illusion that he's perfect – I hate to break it to you, but he isn't."

"And how would you know?" Hermione spat.

Suddenly, Astoria's words from earlier resounded in Draco's mind like angry wasps, stinging him again and again; _'He's a good kisser, isn't he?' _He knew Hermione too well to believe that she wasn't already analysing and re-analysing that sentence, and had been since the instant the words had left Astoria's mouth. However, despite the malice and bitterness she exuded, she had morals, Draco thought. She would never bring up such a skeleton from his past without warning. A seemingly endless second later, during which the silence nearly deafened him, Draco should his head. _Of course she would, _he amended his previous thoughts. _This girl is lower than fucking dirt. _And, as if she read his mind, Astoria's sweet smile replaced her previous look of ruffled anxiety.

"He kissed me in the fifth-floor broom cupboard," she declared to Draco's dismay. He saw Hermione recoil slightly but keep her wand raised out of the corner of his eye. Astoria lowered hers, having noticed that she'd hit a nerve. Her voice dropped to a deadly murmur. "I said if he wanted to stop he should say something, but he didn't. _He didn't want to stop, _Granger. What do you think of that?"

Astoria grinned in malevolent satisfaction, her eyes drifting between Draco and Hermione. To Draco's relief and surprise, Hermione straightened her shoulders and held her head high.

"I think that you are nothing but a spoilt little girl who can't handle not getting what she wants," said Hermione, flicking the hand holding her wand menacingly.

"Give me your best shot Granger," challenged Astoria. "I know how much you want to."

And it was at that precise moment that Draco and Hermione both raised their wands and, with a collective flick of their wrists, cried, '_Expelliarmus!', _sending Astoria flying across the side chamber and into a dark green tapestry crudely depicting an emerald serpent with a wide-eyed hare in its wake. Hermione gasped. Draco's mouth fell open.

"Oh my God..." groaned Hermione, striding across the chamber and standing over Astoria's motionless, crumpled body. "She's unconscious," she added, her tone slightly relieved, as she nudged Astoria's side with the toe of her cream ballet slipper. Astoria's chest rose gently up and down and a trickle of blood, presumably drawn by the impact of her collision with the stone wall, dripped down her forehead from beneath her hairline.

Despite his reluctance to admit it (he had only just found his way back into Hermione Granger's good books – he hardly wanted to ruin everything he had spent the last few months pining and pleading for at this late stage), Draco could not have cared any less about Astoria Greengrass right then. He turned to Hermione and moved his body, rearranged the angle of his limbs to fit with hers, his arms outstretched. But before he could pull her into a comforting embrace, she took a step backward, her torso twisting away from him. He felt his cheeks flame, and the edges of an overly-familiar aching void somewhere deep within his chest flared as though in a harsh breeze, threatening to reopen. _Please, _he begged inwardly. _I can't do this again. Please._

Hermione sighed and turned once more to face him, her eyes lingering on his chest, his shoulders, his neck, his mouth and finally his eyes, drinking him in, analysing his shape and form as though for the first time. Her chocolate brown eyes gleamed and, for a moment, he remembered the evening when they had sat together on the Grand Staircase and had each given the other temporary access to their every thought and emotion. Like then, her eyes burned with a thousand questions and curiosities. It seemed like only yesterday...

Without a warning of any kind, Hermione pulled her nimble arm backward and, in a blur of sudden movement, slapped him hard around the face. His left cheek, the initial point of impact, stung painfully, and he gasped, his reaction delayed slightly by shock.

"Hermione!" he moaned, rubbing the side of his face.

"That was for bloody well _kissing _Astoria Greengrass, you idiot!" she screeched, her eyes wide, her hands on her hips, a small, badly-hidden smile playing around her lips.

His mouth fell open. "Hermione, you are honestly the –"

But before he could finish, Hermione had pulled Draco to her and silenced his words with her lips. Her hands moved to cup his face, the cool softness of her fingertips soothing against the tender, still stinging skin of his left cheek. He felt her smile against his mouth and responded enthusiastically, knotting his fingers in her hair and caressing the lower contour of her lip with his tongue. She moaned quietly, standing on her tiptoes, allowing the kiss to deepen for a too-brief moment.

"And that..." she began before pecking his cheek, "... is for every day since the Yule Ball..." She pressed a chaste but lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. "... For what you just said to Astoria..." Her arms wound around his neck and she brought her lips to his again, parting them slightly. A shiver of electricity flashed down Draco's spine and his heart fluttered. "... And for you. Just for being you. For being perfect. Too perfect for anyone." She smiled wistfully.

Draco laughed, his hands snaking around her waist. "I'm yours, Granger," he admitted, leaning in to plant light kisses along the line of her neck. She leaned her head back as he did so, allowing him full access. "I'm going to be difficult to get rid of now."

"Oh, Draco," she murmured, her head rolling on her neck as his lips traced her collarbone and her jaw before coming to rest at her lips. "There will be no getting rid of you, I promise. I think I might just have to keep you."

/

When Astoria Greengrass woke up in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, the ancient owl feather hands of the wall clock told her it was twenty to midnight. Her head span and her vision was cloudy – immediately after attempting to defiantly sit up, she lay back down, a wave of nausea creeping over her. Astoria scowled. What was wrong with her? Why on earth was she here?

"Excuse me!" She flagged down a very tired-looking Madam Pomfrey as she hurried past the foot of her bed. "What am I doing here?"

"It appears you had a nasty fall, Miss Greengrass," the haughty matron informed her, moving closer and fluffing up her pillows without asking, forcing Astoria to lean forward at an awkward angle.

A frown adorned Astoria's face. A nasty fall? Surely she would remember something of that magnitude? Her return to Hogwarts had not been particularly eventful – her father had had her flown into the school grounds immediately after a lavish dinner in a Thestral-drawn carriage only hours before the Halloween Ball. There was no way she could have felt faint or tired, so what could her 'nasty fall' been a result of? Her usually logical brain was drawing a blank.

"Whereabouts?" she asked irritably, her brow furrowing.

"In the East Chamber off the Entrance Hall which is, incidentally, forbidden to students, Miss Greengrass. When you have recovered, I believe your motives are to be questioned by the Headmaster, but that matter is between yourself and him. You were found an hour or so ago by Miss Granger and Mr Malfoy."

This news made Astoria sit bolt upright. She ignored the head rush that ensued. "What?" she exclaimed, her eyes following Madam Pomfrey as she bustled around the Hospital Wing, peering into the faces of other patients and topping up goblets of steaming medicine. "Granger and Malfoy?" she pressed when the matron failed to respond straight away.

"Yes, Miss Greengrass, Granger and Malfoy!" she confirmed petulantly. "It was extremely kind of them to bring you here – they could have just left you like many others may have! They took time out of their own enjoyment of the Ball to make sure you were properly looked after. You should be thanking them!" And with that, Madam Pomfrey swept across the room and slammed her office door behind her.

/

"May I have this dance, Miss Granger?"

Draco bowed low and Hermione giggled as she took his arm, allowing him to lead her onto the crowded dance floor. A slow, heartbreakingly beautiful melody, as played by the Hogwarts ghost orchestra, echoes around the Great Hall. Groups of students moved awkwardly toward the edges of the room as the song began, making room for the plenitude of couples now filing hand-in-hand onto the floor for the final dance of the night. Hermione felt one of Draco's hands come to rest on her waist, the other raised expectantly to hold hers. She placed her free hand on his shoulder and, for a while – it may have been minutes or hours, Hermione did not know – they twirled in silence. Hermione closed her eyes and breathed him in, his heavenly aroma almost intoxicating in her nostrils, his skin cool against her bare arms.

"I love you, Hermione Granger," he murmured in her ear, forcing yet another smile to her lips. Hermione couldn't remember ever smiling as much on a single occasion as she had tonight. She moved the hand on Draco's shoulder to his neck, tangling her fingers in his silver-blonde hair, and closed in on him, resting her head on his chest. She pulled their opposite hands inward so that their interlaced fingers lay beside her, directly in her eyeline – she stared at them and sighed in contentment.

"I love you too, Draco Malfoy," she whispered against his chest before tilting her head upward expectantly, a hopeful smile on her lips.

He quickly got Hermione's drift – he leant down, smiling himself now, and kissed her tenderly, adoringly. She could feel heat collectively radiating from them as their lips parted. She shuffled forward even more so that they were physically as close as possible. All she wanted was to taste even more of him, to lose herself in him, _drown in him..._

The instant the thought crossed her mind, Draco pulled away, his usual smirk back in place. "It seems that we're getting some disapproving stares," he notified her, nodding in the direction of the teachers' table.

"So what?" Hermione began to say, suddenly irritated by his defeated tone. However, he cut across her.

"The Ball ends in, hmm..." He glanced up at the huge clock. "Fifteen minutes?" Keeping hold of her hand, he spun her outward before pulling her back in, their faces inches apart. She tastes his breath on her tongue and, for a moment, never wanted to move again. She was frozen in place. "Not trying to sound at all cheesy, but..." He looked around suspiciously, as though trying to ward off eavesdroppers. "We could take this somewhere _more private _in a minute," he finished, his voice dark, smooth and sexy like sin and melted chocolate.

Hermione's heart skipped a beat, but she maintained her composure. "In a minute?" she clarified, raising her eyebrows. "Once you've been to one Hogwarts Ball, you've been to them all. Why wait fifteen minutes?"

And, after a final, knowing glance exchange, Draco took her hand and led her out of the Great Hall, winding their way through the excited, happy couples that were milling around the school until they reached the Slytherin residential quarters. Hermione exhaled sharply, trying to scare away the butterflies that swarmed uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes to clear her head but Draco caught her.

"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice sending a current of electricity across the surface of her skin. "This is only the beginning."

And with that, he gathered her up into his arms and carried her across the threshold into the Slytherin common room. Hermione felt at peace – the world felt warm, secure, _right _again. They were together and they were perfect. Everything was perfect.

_- The End._

_**That's it, everybody! Thank you all SO SO much, everybody who has stuck with this story until the very end. Thanks for the amazing stats, the reviews, the PMs, everything! I couldn't have asked for a better response to my first ever Fanfiction! I guess all I can say now is look out for my next story – if you liked this, add me to your author subscriptions so you know why my next Dramione tale is available to read! Oh, and give me one final review to celebrate the end of this one? I will love you forever (well, more than I already do)!**_

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